


Another Tribe

by SimonRumney



Category: Ancient History RPF, Fiction Plane
Genre: Alternate History, Drama, F/F, F/M, Fiction, Gen, Low Fantasy, M/M, Multi, Mystery, Other, Popular, Romance, best sellers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-14 00:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 89,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11196264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimonRumney/pseuds/SimonRumney
Summary: Julii, a beautiful, insecure and victimized Tennessee Indian is caught up in the white man's world after saving the life of a Confederate captain wounded at the battle of Shiloh.Overcoming great disadvantage, cruel prejudice and bitter persecution, Julii harnesses her intrinsic genius to become the Confederate States’ most aggressive blockade-runner.Using conspiracy, manipulation and bribery to punish those who wronged her, Julii sets off a chain of events that leads to General Sherman burning down Atlanta, his infamous “March to the sea”, and a total Union victory, while condemning her to suffer for the sins of her past.





	1. Julii

####  Julii

 

 _Propitious_ is the word one eyewitness used to describe the weather in his report of the distant battle.  That same report went on to say the battle was being fought between the Union army of the north and the Confederate army of the south at a place called Shiloh on Saturday the sixth of April in the year of 1863.  But even if Julii had known of the report’s existence, all of those words and numbers would have meant absolutely nothing because she had not yet met Captain Robert Calhoun, the man who would teach her the white man’s language.

Blissfully unaware each step was taking her closer and closer to unimaginable heartache, she hummed as one foot fell, slapped the empty deer skin water bottle then whistled as the other foot hit the ground.  The continuous rhythm made no discernible tune but Julii didn’t care.  She had been humming, slapping and whistling her way along this path, in a papoose on her mother’s back or on foot, almost every morning of her eighteen years.

Fetching water for her family was entirely predictable.  She knew birds would sing out to protect their nests because that’s what they always did.  She knew the sky would be blue or blue and white because it always was.  She knew wind may shake the leaves all around her because it sometimes did that too.  She knew the earlier rain would make her moccasins sticky and clumsy, but there was no danger of falling because she knew exactly where to place her feet.  There were simply never any surprises...  Then she stopped.

Something new and different caught her attention.  It was a distant booming thunder sound, but this thunder sounded like no thunder she had ever heard before.  Normal thunder came from above but this thunder seemed to roll along the ground from somewhere up ahead.  Normal thunder came alone and at regular intervals with lightning.  This thunder was more violent and crashed multiple times then all at once, then one at a time, then all at once again with no flashes of lightning.  There was also the smoldering smell of smoke in the air but thunder had never smelled of smoke before.  Looking up, Julii could see no clouds.  Today the sky had chosen to be all blue and there was no wind shaking the leaves.  _How can there be thunder?_   _Were the sky god’s restless?_

She wanted to go back and ask her father but decided to push-on because her family was in need of water.  She also knew her father would encourage her to work it out for herself because he always wanted her to think things through.  She was trying really hard to imagine what could be making the noise when she stopped dead in her tracks once again.

She knew what a horse looked like because she had seen two wild ones at this very waterhole many years before.  Just like them, the one now standing at the shallow bend in the river was drinking but this one seemed very different.  It was brown all over, not blotchy like the brown and white ones she had seen.  It was also in much better condition than the wild ones, bigger, taller and stronger, but even more different, this one had a really strange looking pink man attached to it.

His leg hung at an impossible angle from a shiny thing attached to the end of a long hide strap that went all the way to a heavy looking brown shiny thing on top of the horse.  The brown shiny thing was made of hide and bowed at the top; it was attached by a hide strap that ran under the horse’s belly.   _Was it a natural part of the horse?_   _No._   _It was a different color and separate from the horse._   _It must be a man-made addition._

The strange pink man must have somehow attached the bowed thing to the top of the horse. _Why?_  

It was the shape that gave Julii the clue.  _Could he have been sitting on top of the horse?_   _Was the hide thing something to sit on?_   _Had the man fallen off of the horse?_   _Yes!_

 _The man had fallen from the top of the horse to the ground._   Julii imagined how falling from such a great height would cause terrible damage.  _Was he dead?_   Julii moved closer to check for signs of life.

The strange man groaned as she prodded his leg.  _He was alive._   That was a good thing, but now she was curious about the strange hide that covered his leg.  It looked and felt like some kind of finely woven hide but the hide had no pattern and no stone or shell beads sewn into it.  It was the same gray as the sky on a winter’s morning.

It covered all of his legs but, when it reached his waist, it ended and another separate piece of the same woven gray hide covered his upper body.  Everything except his hands, feet and head were covered by the gray hide.  There was also a cruel yellow colored thing wrapped tightly around his neck.  It was the same pretty yellow color of the flowers that come as the cold season ends and the warming begins, but it did not make her feel happy like seeing those flowers did.

Julii instinctively lifted her hand to feel the wide open neck of her soft deer hide dress.  _How can someone wear something so constricting as that unforgiving yellow thing?_   _What does the yellow thing do?_   _It was clear the bowed hide seat thing’s strap must keep it on top of the horse._   _Was it also clear that the yellow thing kept his head on top of his body?_   _No!_  

That made no sense.  _The man was alive because he had moaned._   _Men, even pink men, can’t live without a head._   _Or can they?_   _Can pink men live without a head?_

Moving her head slowly from right to left, Julii imagined the discomfort such a restricting yellow thing would cause.  _Maybe this man is being punished?_   _Surely, no one would do that to themselves?_   _Someone else must have done it to him._   _Did the same person hurt his leg too?_   _What awful deed had this pink man done to deserve such a terrible punishment?_  

Julii took a hurried step backwards.  _Was he going to do to her what he had done to deserve the yellow thing?_   Julii took another step backwards.

She was relieved to see the pink man was asleep and could not harm her but sad to see the agony stirring inside him every time the horse moved.  _Oh no!_   It was her.  Her movement was making the horse move. 

She stopped moving and fixed the horse with a stare.  The horse looked back at her.  His big brown eyes seemed to be asking her for help.  _How can a wild animal expect help from me?_   _How can the pink man sleep in all those restricting clothes while hanging from such a big horse?_   Nothing about this scene made any sense to Julii.

From deep within the pink man came a fretful sound which Julii found oddly comforting.  Then she felt heartless and guilty, but it was not the pink man’s suffering that gave her the feeling of comfort, it was his forlorn tone.  _Not his tone exactly._

Now she berated herself for being cruel but she was not cruel.  She had heard such hopeless sounds coming from a wolf with a broken leg, and it was that familiarity that gave her comfort.  _Anyway, she knew what she really meant._

Reining in her guilty thoughts, Julii centered her attention on the problem at hand.  _Focus on the wolf._   Her father had killed the wolf with the broken leg, and even though they did not eat the wolf, killing him had been the right thing to do.  Julii’s father had said: “The wolf was in pain and nothing should be made to suffer.”

 _Should she kill the pink man who hung from the horse?_   _He was most definitely suffering._   Even though he would provide more meat than a wolf, Julii knew her family would never eat a man - not even such a strange, different and pale one. But he was suffering, and nothing should be made to suffer.  _What should she do?_  

 _Fetch father?_   _No!_

This was a puzzle Julii must solve by herself.  Father would know what to do in an instant, _he always did,_ but even when she was very young, he trusted her ability to make the right decisions.  _She would not let him down now._

Walking closer to the pink man, Julii gave all of her attention to the long shiny thing attached to his wrist by a woven hide.  The hide was bright white.  _How could that be?_   Julii had never seen bright white hide.  _What sort of animal provided white hide, or gray hide, or even yellow hide for that matter?_

The long shiny thing looked like a longer version of her father’s old knife but her father’s knife didn’t shine like this one.  Her father’s knife was made of the same stuff as this long knife; the stuff that sharpened on rocks and bent without breaking.  Her father’s knife had been handed down to him from his father and his grandfather; it was the only real knife in her little tribe and he was very, very proud of it.

 _He would be so much prouder of this long shiny knife but it was not hers or her father’s to take._   _It belonged to the pink man._   _Only if the pink man died would she be able to give this long knife to her father._   What was she thinking?  _She did not want the pink man to die!_   _She was only thinking!_   Now she berated herself again for being cruel, but she was not cruel.  _Anyway, she knew what she really meant._

Looking closer, Julii noticed blood on the long shiny knife thing.  She examined the pink man.  _He had no obvious cuts and the horse had no cuts, so the blood must be from someone else!_  

Julii took two rapid steps backwards causing the horse to move, which caused even more pain within the shiny pink man.  She stopped. 

 _Would he hurt her with the long shiny knife thing?_   _Had he hurt others?_   _Is that why he wore the yellow thing around his neck?_

Estimating the length of the pink man’s arm and the length of the long shiny knife thing, Julii worked out how far he could reach at a stretch.  She immediately took another step back.  The horse moved, the man groaned and Julii stopped once again.

 _What now?_   _Take the shiny knife thing away?_   _Yes._   _Without the long shiny knife thing, he cannot hurt her._   Julii swiftly retraced her backward steps and bent down to remove the knife, but the pink man’s hand moved with the speed of a rattle snake. 

The hide thing that covered his hand then carried on over his wrist and flared out over his lower arm felt soft but the fingers inside were hard.  They held on tight in the place where her light brown birthmark surrounded her wrist like a bracelet.  _It hurt._   She was afraid.  _Should she hit him?_   His leg hung from the horse in front of her.  _Yes, his broken leg!_  As the shiny pink man screamed, he let go of Julii’s wrist.

His agonizing scream was a truly awful sound but she did not dwell on it; Julii was too preoccupied with how touching the powerful muscles in his leg made her feel. 

It was shamefully exciting.  It was clear he hadn’t always been so helpless; his leg felt strong, his belly was flat, and when she thought about it, his face, although a little dirty, was very good to look at.  He made her feel happy.  _No, not happy, different._   _He made her tummy feel funny._

The pink man’s wonderfully blue eyes looked directly into hers and pleaded.  Just like his horse, he was now appealing for her to make a decision that would improve his lot; it made Julii feel funny inside.  Even though he lay helpless looking up to her for salvation, she wanted to smile.  The warm feeling moved up from her tummy, past her neck and forced her lips to move upwards in a smile. 

 _What was she doing?_   _Now the pink man would think her cruel._   She tried to force the smile from her lips and it turned into a spontaneous laugh.  _What was she doing?_

Julii pointed at the long shiny knife thing.  _Yes, this was a good idea._   _If he let go of the long shiny knife thing, she could help him._

The pink man understood immediately.  He let the hide thing, which flared at the wrist, slip from his fingers and moved his hand away, leaving the flared thing still attached to the long shiny knife thing.

 _Was this a trick?_   As desperate as she was to touch the pink man again, Julii was still too afraid to approach him.  _Could the hide thing, which flared at the wrist, still control the long shiny knife?_   _Would it strike if she walked too close?_  

Julii looked closely at the arrangement of the hide and shiny knife thing lying on the grass.  _It all looked very dead._

To show he meant Julii no harm, the shiny pink man opened his empty hand to let her know he had nothing concealed within.

 _How wonderful._   _We understand each other without words._   Julii could not believe she was thinking like a silly girl.  _What was she doing?_   This man represented more danger than anything she had ever seen in all of her life.  _Stop this!_   _Stop it now!_

Julii’s deliberate and disciplined movement was swift.  Her moccasin-covered foot had the long shiny knife thing, the white hide rope, and the hide hand covering moving away from his hand in an instant.  Now she could feel safe enough to get close to see what held his leg in that awkward position.

She looked at the long black, shiny moccasin that covered his foot.  It also covered the bottom of his leg almost up to his knee.  _Did this man fear air touching his skin?_   _Everything except his head was completely covered._

Looking closer at his very light blond hair, Julii could see a flattened line of matted hair all around his head.  _Even his head had been covered by something that must have fallen of as the horse dragged him here._

Re-focusing her girlish thoughts on the job at hand, Julii noticed another smaller, shiny thing attached to the heel of his long black moccasin.  It was that smaller shiny thing that seemed to be caught within yet-another shiny thing at the end of the hide strap which hung from the bowed shiny thing on top of the horse.

 _Everything about this man was shiny._   Julii had seen more shiny things in the last few moments than she had seen in her whole life.   _Where had he come from?_   Julii looked up to the sky for just a moment but that made no sense.  The horse was of her world.  The man, despite being whitish pink and funny looking, was of her world.  It was just the shiny bits that connected him to the horse that made him different.

 _If she disconnected him from the horse, would he become normal?_   Julii was pleased with her deduction.  _Father would be proud of her._

Reaching out, Julii released the man’s long black moccasin from the shiny thing hanging from the bowed shiny thing on top of the horse.  Her action freed the pink man from the horse but his leg fell to the ground with a thump.

 _There was that awful scream again._   It seemed to hurt Julii as much as the man.  _How could that be?_   Julii felt embarrassed.  She should have known to guide the leg down gently.  She had not meant to make the pink man’s suffering worse but that is exactly what she had done.

Still berating herself, Julii took a little comfort in the fact that, despite his agony, the shiny pink man’s foot was free of the horse.  Because of her initiative, the big animal’s movements were no longer causing him pain and, despite the obvious damage caused by the careless fall of his leg, progress had been made.

 _What now?_   _Water?_   _Yes, water._   _Everyone, whatever color, must need water._

Julii retrieved her water skin, filled it, and held it up right next to the pink man’s head.  Gently tipping the skin, Julii tried to pour water slowly into his mouth but it gushed out all over his face.

Pulling the skin back upright, Julii apologized but he didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he appeared grateful for the cool water. She tried again.  She had never seen a man drink like this pink man drank; it was the agony of desperation and pleasure and torment all-in-one anxious action.  Then, laying back onto the grass, the pink man closed his eyes and stopped being hurt.

Julii prodded his hard chest with a finger because she had at least a hundred questions for him to answer.  There was so much to talk about but he would not wake-up.  She held her ear to his mouth and could hear his breath going faintly in and out, so she knew he was still alive.  _Good!_  

She had not drowned him or killed him with the pain of letting his leg fall.  _That was a good thing._

 _His breath smelt nice._   She moved closer to smell it better.  His teeth were white and straight beneath his full pink lips.  She had an incredible urge to touch his lips with her own.  _What was she thinking?_

 

 


	2. Part 2 The last of the Koasati tribe

####  The last of the Koasati tribe

 

To pass the boring days of patiently nursing her shiny pink man through his coma, Julii filled her head with all sorts of fanciful ideas.  She particularly liked to imagine what he would say when he woke up because, despite what everyone else in her tribe said, she knew that he was going to wake up. 

 _They were all wrong._   _He was going to wake up, and she was going to have fascinating conversations and he was going to answer all of the questions she was dying to ask because he was going to wake up!_

 _His broken leg was healing, so that must mean his broken head was healing too._   She imagined how fantastic he would look when he stood up tall and proud.  Of course she already knew how long he was, she could see that, but people looked different standing up.  She just knew that her shiny pink man would hold himself upright with pride when he woke up.  _He was definitely going to wake up!_

 _Would his first words be words of thanks for the loving care she had given him?_   _Would they be cheeky and flirtatious?_   Julii particularly liked that scenario.  _Or would they be mundane words like:  “Where am I?”_

Of all the possible questions he would ask when he woke up, Julii thought answering that one would be the easiest because she believed she knew all there was to know about her world.

She had spent lots of time with the elders of her tribe.  She had listened attentively and learned all there was to learn about her world; she knew their land intimately all the way to its boundaries.  The elders told how her people had been chosen by the sky God, and Julii believed that the gods had placed her people in this valley as a reward.

But the information was false.  Everything she knew about her people, her life and her world was based on many life times of misinformation.  She simply did not know that the land she lived on was called Tennessee.  She simply had no idea the land had been named Tennessee by the Cherokee people.  Truth be told, she had never even heard of the once proud Cherokee Nation.

Julii had also never heard of the Koasati tribe.  She did not even know that she was a member of the Koasati tribe, and therefore, could have absolutely no idea that she was one of a very last of the Koasati people left in this place called Tennessee.

She did not even know the true reason why her tribe called this tiny but beautiful, well sheltered and fertile, valley “home”, or that her ignorance was caused by nothing more than simple human shame.

It was shame that prevented Julii’s great grandfather and great grandmother from telling their offspring about being banished from their respective tribes.  Even when they were very old, the couple, still filled with shame, could never find the words to explain the raw emotions that caused their banishment.  Those once intoxicating, impulsive, life and death feelings that had simply worn away with time.  She, the powerful Chickasaw chief’s only daughter, and him, far too low down the pecking order of a secondary tribe like the Koasati, to be taken seriously. 

Their love had been ignored and eventually overruled by the elders of both tribes.  She was simply too valuable an asset to be wasted on a nobody like him.  Even in their youth they understood that a strong alliance between her people and important tribes like the Cherokee, or the Shawnee, or the Yuchi, or even the Quapaw would have been the best thing for both of their tribes but they loved each other.

Their meetings were made more exciting by being carried out in secret, but when she started to show with his child, their excitement turned to agony.  Both his and her entire extended families had been banished, forever, forced to live far away from the safety of their tribes. 

Their shameful new home had been chosen for them because it was known by both tribes as a _bad spirit place_ ; a place where no other humans ever wandered.  This was a spiteful, dishonorable and terrible punishment made worse because they were considered outcasts, even within their own banished families.

After a lonely life together, Julii’s great grandfather and great grandmother both went to the sky believing that their longed for tribes still lived happily in their ancestral hunting grounds, just as they had for many thousands of years. The awful truth was the direct ancestors of those two love sick fools were now the only native people left on the sweet lands east of the great Mississippi river.

The old couple simply did not know that both of the tribes they longed to rejoin, and all of the tribes in Tennessee, had been herded away west on the “trail of tears” by the ever treacherous white man.  Like very poorly treated cattle, many of the native people were driven to their appalling deaths and, by a strange act of destiny, the old couples punishment had come just one moon before these so-called “tribal clearances”.

Julii, like all of her people, did not know the real reason why she was where and who she was. Her father and mother had told her what their father and mother had been told by their father and mother. 

All of the original “banished people” had been too ashamed to tell the truth about their foolish love-struck parents, so they made up the more palatable story of being the sky God’s _chosen people_.

Until the arrival of her shiny pink man, Julii had believed that the members of her little tribe were the only people in the whole wide world.  Now she believed that her shiny white-pinkish man laying naked by the fire in her father’s tipi was going to explain everything about the world outside her valley - all he had to do was wake up.  _He was going to wake up!_

From time to time, her pink-white man would stir long enough to sip water but he wasn’t really awake.  The noises he made were not words, they couldn’t be, because Julii understood all of the words in the world.

As a child, Julii had sat for many, many hours with the elders learning every word they knew.  People in her small tribe even came to Julii to learn about words, because she was recognized by her people as the one who knew them all.  This is how she knew that the shiny pinkish-white man’s unintelligible noises could not be words.

 _Why won’t he wake up?_   Leaning over the shiny white-pink man, Julii lifted his neck and removed the leaves from the pus-oozing gash on the back of his head for the umpteenth time. 

On the day she met him, she had not noticed the terrible cut on the back of his head because she was too afraid to get close to the man who represented so much danger.  The deep gash had only been found later, by her mother, as she helped Julii pull the strange gray hide from his body.

She smiled at the thought of her fear on that first, strange, day.  He seemed so harmless now that she had seen him naked.  _Not harmless exactly, just different._   _Exciting._   _What was she thinking?_   _He needed fresh leaves!_

For the umpteenth time in three days, Julii left the tipi believing she needed to gather medicinal leaves.  The truth was, there were already more leaves in her father’s tipi than the pink-white man was ever going to need.  Fetching leaves was simply the excuse she needed to go outside and calm herself down.

When she wasn’t gathering leaves, Julii sat looking and waiting for the shiny pink-white man to wake up and answer her questions.  His face seemed somehow familiar but that perception must have grown during the days she spent by his side.  There was simply no way she could have seen him before, so it must be that.

She looked closer and smiled.  His face made her feel like smiling again.  _More leaves!_  

She had many chores to do, but she kept putting them off because she had so many questions that needed answers.  She could not remember ever having so many questions, even with the elders.

Julii had cleaned him and all of his shiny things more than once.  She had told him all about what she was doing as she rubbed his body with the soft, damp, deer hide just in-case he could hear her, but he would not wake up and respond.

The shiny things were all neatly lined up beside him.  Each object had a list of questions. _So many questions_.  Each list was stored in her head waiting for the moment he could speak.  _There were just so many questions_ , and the list grew every time Julii looked at the shiny pink-white man’s naked body.

She looked at his naked body a lot, and even her own denial had to admit there were just too many leaves to justify fetching more.  When the feelings he evoked inside her became too confusing, she distracted herself by re-cleaning his shiny things.  _There were just so many questions and he would not wake up._   _But he was going to wake up!_

The bowed thing on top of the horse had been the heaviest of the shiny pink-white man’s strange shiny possessions.  It was not too heavy, just large and difficult to bring down from the horse, and hard to clean properly.  Julii really wanted to clean everything properly.  She believed that the shiny pink-white man would be more willing to answer her questions if he could see that his shiny things had been looked after properly.

The black moccasins were also not as heavy as they had looked before they were removed.  She had tugged and tugged them away from his leg, and underneath even his feet were covered in a soft woven hide.  _Did he really fear air touching his skin?_   _So many questions for when he wakes up._   _He will wake up!_

While cleaning the black moccasins, Julii found they were covered in a magical substance that, when rubbed, began to shine more and more black.  It was incredible to see such a wonder, and many of her tribe watched in astonishment as her rubbing action kept bringing more and more of a shine.

None of her tribe could understand why the shiny pink-white man would go to the extraordinary lengths that must be required to create such a magical substance.  No one in the tribe had a use for it, so they all assumed he must be a very vain shiny pink-white man who must be unhealthily obsessed by his appearance.

Upset by this negative assessment of her shiny pink-white man, Julii thought long and hard about a practical reason for his magical substance.  She eventually surprised and amazed her tribe by pouring water onto the long black moccasins.  It just fell off in beads and did nor soak into the hide beneath the black substance - proving the magical substance was to protect the moccasins.

Now Julii could be proud of her shiny pink-white man because everyone in the tribe could see a use for his magical substance.  Many even wanted some for themselves, but other than the layer that was already on his long moccasins, the shiny pink-white man did not have any more among his possessions.

Proving her shiny pink-white man was not vain had been a relief for Julii but also caused her a lot of worry.  Before she had dared show her tribe the trick of pouring water on the moccasins, she had first tried to cover the shiny things attached to the heel. 

Much to her horror, the thing on the heel came off in her hands.  She did not want her shiny white-man waking up to find that she had damaged one of his shiny things.

At first Julii thought she had broken his black moccasin.  She felt sure that the shiny pink-white man would wake up and be angry with her.  Worse, he would not answer any questions because he would be so furious but, much to her relief, she realized it was meant to come off.   To prove it, she removed the shiny thing from the heel of his other black moccasin.

The purpose of those shiny things had been a mystery until Julii’s close friend Ringwind worked out what they were for.  Just by chance, Ringwind had noticed the shape of the shiny thing scarred into the horses flanks.  Ringwind was clever.  He saw how the pink-white man had made the horse move with the shiny things.

Then, much to her annoyance, Ringwind said that this was proof of the pink-white man’s cruelty.  He said that they should send him away now, tied to his scarred horse, before he wakes up. But Julii used her extensive vocabulary to form strong arguments, and she did not let that happen.  _She was never going to let that happen._

Julii had known since the day after she found him by the waterhole that Ringwind didn’t like her shiny pink-white man.  This annoyed her because he had no reason to dislike him.  Her pink-white man had not said, or done, anything to offend him.  How could he?  He had been asleep since the moment she freed his leg from the horse.

Halfway through the second day, Ringwind had simply poked his head into Julii’s father’s tipi; he looked at the man laying naked, then looked at her sitting beside him.  He made a strange facial expression she had never seen before and walked away.  From then on, Ringwind simply decided not to like her shiny pink-white man.

It was while thinking about the day Ringwind had poked his head into the tipi, Julii noticed the long shiny knife was no longer beside her pink-white man.  It should have been there with all of his other shiny possessions, but it was missing and Julii was extremely concerned about it.  The shiny hollow thing that covered the long shiny knife thing was there, but the knife itself was missing.  _How can that be?_

Leaving her father’s tipi, Julii asked everyone she saw where the long shiny knife could be but no-one knew.  It was her mother who eventually told her that the knife and the horse had been put to work by her father.

Upset, Julii went out into the forest to tell her father not to use the pink-white man’s things because he would be very angry about it when he woke up.  _Because he was definitely going to wake up!_

When she found him, Julii was horrified to see her shiny white- man’s horse loaded with freshly chopped firewood.  She told him to stop what he was doing but her father told her that he simply didn’t think the pink-white man would care because he would not survive the yellow sickness oozing from the cut in the back of his head.

This made Julii furious with her father.  “How can you say such a terrible thing?”  “What if the sky gods heard you saying such things?”  “My pink-man is going to wake-up!  “He is definitely going to wake-up!”

Unable to convince her father to stop using her pink-white man’s knife, Julii gave up and returned to nurse him back to health.  She just knew her father was wrong.  _She just knew that her pink-white man would survive.  When he woke up, she would explain how helpful his long shiny knife had been and he would understand._   _She would explain it all to her white-pink man._

 _Although it was summer now, he would know that winter always followed and they would need the firewood._   Then she wondered.  _Would he know that?_   _Is it like that where he is from?_   _More questions for when he wakes up._   _Because he is definitely going to wake up!_

To take her fretting mind away from the impossible predicament her father had placed her in, Julii studied the pink-white man’s gray body covering.  It was clean, patched and hanging from the tipi. 

Julii had beaten it on a rock at the water hole for the greater part of a morning because the stains had been caught within the woven fabric.  She now thought of it as fabric and not hide, because no hide she had ever seen absorbed water like her white-man’s coverings did.

She marveled at the tiny, beautiful stitches joining all of the separate tightly-woven panels together.  She was particularly fascinated by a small part at the bottom of the gray covering.  In the place where men make water, there were two panels that were not connected by stitches.  There were holes on one panel and round shiny things on the other.  On the day she and her mother undressed her pink-white man, Julii had watched her mother force the shiny round things through the holes to make the two panels come apart.

While washing the gray garments, she had pushed the shiny round things in and out of the tiny holes several times.  It was so simple but so clever.  Of course, everyone in Julii’s little tribe had carved bone clasps that join one piece of hide to another, but nothing that hid themselves so cleverly away like her pink-white man’s shiny round things.

Looking at the top part of her pink-white man’s gray covering, Julii admired the shiny things embroidered around the yellow thing that fitted so tightly around his neck.  _He must be important to have such extraordinary clothes, maybe even a chief._  

Julii felt proud that she was taking care of someone so important.  _But why won’t he wake up?_   _Her father cannot be right._   _Her pink-white man will not die._   _Her shiny pink-white man will wake up and tell her about the world he is from._   _He has to wake-up._   _He will wake-up!_

Looking over her shoulder to make sure no-one was watching, Julii prodded her pink-white man.  She had been prodding her pink-white man with her finger from time to time for days. 

Every time she did it, she told herself it would be the last time but, just sitting looking at him, she couldn’t restrain herself.  Julii had to know more about the world outside of hers, she had to learn everything about his world.  _There were just so many questions._

Then, one day, her waiting simply came to an end.  His eyes just flicked open, just like that.  No prodding required, not even one of her gentle ones. 

After glancing at her and all around the tipi, her pink-white man became scared and panic-stricken.  Julii wondered why he seemed so terrified; it was for no reason she could understand.  He tried to stand.  He couldn’t do it.  He was too weak. 

Water and a little cold possum soup wasn’t enough for a man like this, and Julii knew it.  She would have liked to have fed him more, but there had simply been no way of doing it in his condition.

Julii held out a large leaf with cold meat and berries on it.  He pulled away from her as though she were evil.  Then, moving rapidly, he rudely grabbed the leaf and forced everything on it into his mouth with his hand. 

 _Meat and berries in one mouthful?_   Julii was confused.  Here was another question to ask her shiny pink-white man.  _Who eats meat and berries in one mouthful?_

Already she was learning something new about her pink-white-man and his strange world.  _This was exciting._   She handed him a deer hide water skin. 

While chewing and slurping desperately at the water skin, he looked at Julii.  It wasn’t the look she had been anticipating.  That look would have been grateful and excited, even a little flirtatious.  The look he was giving her was angry, fearful, contemptuous, even a little disgusted.

Julii reached for the empty leaf and he pulled away from her as he spoke a string of gibberish.  What came from his mouth had no discernible meaning but she could not mistake the scornful tone in the noises that sounded something like: “Get your goddamn red-nigger hands away from me!”

 

 


	3. Part 3 Prejudice

####  Prejudice

 

The shiny pink-white man was not smiling at Julii and it was not fair.  She had spent so many days imagining, fantasizing really, how nice his smile was going to be as she sat by his side nursing him through that awful fever. 

The fever had broken now and he looked healthy but he would not smile.  He had made a few sounds but he had not yet smiled.  Julii just knew that he would make a wonderful smile, but even when she smiled at him, he simply would not make one in return.

The expression on his face, and the attitude of his body, made it clear that she was not going to get her way.  That was confronting because Julii was used to getting her way when it came to men.

His eyes did not show warmth towards her, they showed contempt.  She had never seen that look before in any of her own people.  It made her feel something she had never felt before - _inferior_.  Her shiny pink-white man made her feel inferior and it hurt.

Something was very wrong.  Her pink-white man was supposed to like her.  She had always been the pride of both her family and her small tribe.  She was intelligent and very pleasing to look at. 

She had never seen herself, other than her distorted reflection in the water, yet she knew that she must be pleasing to the eye.  With just a look, or a smile, she had been able to win anybody over. 

Her mother could do the same, and she was very pretty, so Julii surmised that she must be pretty too.  _So why didn’t her pink-white man think she was pretty like everyone else?_

Julii knew that her very light-colored strawberry blond hair was unusual for her tribe.  It was not as beautiful as the straight, shiny black hair of the others, and she also knew that the wave that made it flow over her shoulders was peculiar.  _Is this why her shiny pink-white man did not warm to her?_

She knew that her round eyes were not as beautiful as her mother’s wide, thin eyes.  She also knew that her body, made strong by hard work and running down animals in the forest, was not as dark as her peers. But it was appealing to men, because the men of her tribe looked at her just as they looked at her mother.

Ringwind also looked at her in a way that told her she must be pretty.   _So why can’t her shiny pink-white man see that?_

She wasn’t just a thing to be looked at either.  She was the leader of her peers when it came to intelligence and cunning.  She was very nearly as good at Ringwind at hunting, and he was the best among the young ones in all of her small generation. 

No-one had ever been able to resist her cheeky craftiness, but she could also think, and plan, and do things that only men were supposed to do.  Julii knew that she must be a young woman with much to offer, but she did not flaunt it because she was also modest like her mother.

Now her shiny pink-white man, the only man who excited her and made her feel like a woman not a girl, was forcing her to flaunt those offerings in a clumsy attempt to overcome his deeply held contempt. Grasping at straws, Julii looked for ways to change his mind.  _He has not seen the sun for many days._   _Maybe sunshine will make him happy._

Julii tried to help him up and get him outside, but he pushed her hands away as though they were somehow unclean. 

 _How could that be?_   _How can he be so cruel after everything she had done for him?_   _After all of the unreserved feelings she held for him?_  

She had not even bothered to build a protective mental barrier because he looked so nice, and kind, and he would be grateful to her because she saved his life.  _She had not even considered he may cause her pain._

The shiny pink-white man tried to stand by himself and fell face first into the compacted mud of the tipi floor.  Julii’s instinctive reaction was, _good, he deserved it_ , while in the same moment his pain became hers.  _How could she like someone so much but want him to suffer at the same time?_  

She had to help him.  _He needs my help, so I must help._

Bracing herself for more rejection, Julii steadied his arm as he tried to lift himself.  He did not push her hands away this time.  He let Julii help him back to the deer hide bed where he lay breathing heavily. 

 _How could he be out of breath after moving once and for such a short distance?_   _Was he a weak man?_   _No, his body was strong, very strong._

Julii had studied every inch of it for days, and everything about his body was tantalizing.  In fact, his body tempted her in ways she had never been tempted before.  _Stop this!_   _He doesn’t deserve my care!_   _He has made his feelings very clear!_   _But I should clean his face_.

Reaching towards him with a damp hide cloth caused the shiny pink-white man to move with the speed of a snake, just as he had on the day she had found him by the waterhole.  Unlike that first day, she had no broken leg to punch, so his grip around her birthmark remained strong and showed no sign of letting go.

His touch, though brutal and unkind, sent hot charges up her arm into her body.  She gulped in breaths of air.  Her chest pounded like it did on the days she ran after deer with her father.  _How could she be out of breath when she had not even moved?_

Her shiny pink-white man pulled Julii powerfully towards him.  His intention was unclear and a little chilling but it excited her.  He was hurting her wrist, but she was not thinking of the pain as he pulled her closer and closer.  _Was it her lips he needed?_   _Had he been harboring the same fantasies as her?_

At the last moment, when he could have kissed her lips, he moved to speak into her ear between gasping breaths.  She had no way of understanding his words, but the movement of his lips brushing her ear sent more fire coursing throughout her body.

The unbearably heat just came upon her for no reason and she felt wet in the place between her legs.  For a fleeting moment Julii believed she had begun her bleed or even lost control of her water but no, this was that wonderful feeling, the feeling she had felt in her dreams.  _Dreams!_   Julii’s wonder turned to panic.  _That is why he seems so familiar._

The shiny pink-white man was familiar to her because he had been in her recurring dreams long before she met him.  It was an oh-so vivid and real dream that frightened her.  It was the dream she was too afraid to talk about, even with her mother.  In the dream, her pink-white man had not been wearing the gray covering and his hair was longer, but it was him.  He was standing on a strange huge canoe with a white hide that billowed in the wind, while crossing a great body of water.  _How could this man be in her dreams?_

Julii came back from her confused thoughts to find his lips still speaking unintelligible noises right next to her ear.  He was clearly trying to communicate with her but nothing made any sense.  _How could that be?_   _She was the keeper of the words._   _She knew all of the words in the world._

Rudely interrupting her shiny pink-white man, she asked him a question.  She used the most basic words, as though she were talking to a child, words that anyone of the children in her tribe would understand. But her shiny pink-white man had no idea what she was saying.  _Was he simple?_

One of Julii’s cousins was simple.  He never really made words that people could understand.  Her father said it was because his parents were too closely related.  _Were her shiny pink-white man’s parents too closely related?_

 _Her shiny pink-white man must have parents._   _Why had she not thought about that before?_   _If he had parents, did he have an entire tribe?_   _Were there many more people somewhere out there in the world?_   _If so, did they speak another language?_

The thought of learning another language was too exciting.  Julii just wanted to get started right-away.  Her shiny pink-white man started speaking again, but this time he pointed to the long shiny thing that hung from the hide belt that Julii had removed from around his waist.  _Why did it have to be that shiny thing?_

It was the hollow container for his long knife.  It looked exactly like the long shiny knife but thicker.  Julii was embarrassed.  _Of all the shiny things he could have pointed at, why did it have to be that one?_

She had told her father not to take the long knife.  She knew the shiny pink-white man would be unhappy when he woke up.  And now he was, and she was the one left in the tipi to deal with his disappointment and, quite probably, anger.

She watched her pink-white man as he repeated words that sounded like:  “Where is my sword?” 

He said them slowly this time so that the sounds were not all joined together.  The tone of his voice and the gaps between the sounds helped Julii understand that he was trying to use words to ask a question.

“Where is my sword?”  Julii tried a disarming smile as she repeated his words and pointed at the shiny hollow thing in the shape of the long shiny knife.

Her pink-white-man did not smile back.  He just pointed and nodded. 

Julii felt panic rising inside as she told her disapproving shiny pink-white man how she pleaded with her father not to use the long knife to collect firewood.

He didn’t understand, and that only compounded her feelings of panic.  Julii had to walk out of the tipi for a moment. While outside, she had an idea. 

Returning with a piece of firewood, she made a chopping motion with her hand on the wood. 

His face confirmed her fears.  He was angry.  More angry than she had seen anyone in her tribe.  _She should have protested, fought harder, to stop her father taking the long shiny knife._   _This is all my fault!_

Her pink-white man was becoming reddish-white and his words were growing louder.  He had obviously found reserves of energy from deep within himself.  _Surely, that had to be a good sign._   _Signs of recovery._

He was talking rapidly.  Even if she had been able to understand the individual words, he was speaking far too fast for Julii to understand.  All she caught were the now familiar sounding: “red nigger!”

Those two words had been among his first, so they must be important.  _Were they a greeting?_   _No, they were said in anger._   Julii repeated his words, “red nigger”. 

She liked the sound of the words, so she smiled and repeated them again.  “Red nigger.”

The shiny red-white man’s anger turned to a laugh but it was not a fun laugh.  It was a cruel laugh.  Her shiny red-white man’s first laugh should have brought comfort to Julii but it didn’t.

There was no humor in it.  It was a horrible combination of contempt, anger and scorn.  _Why was he so complicated when her feelings for him were so unmistakably simple?_

Julii wanted to understand why he laughed so obscenely.  She wanted to communicate with him some more but he just fell back onto the deer hide bed and passed-out.

 

 


	4. Learning

####  Learning

 

Julii’s shiny pink-white man was laying on his back in the sun beside the river and his long, not so shiny, knife was laying on the ground beside him.  _When he woke up, he would have no more need to be angry._

Julii still fretted a little because his horse was still being used to carry firewood.  She had asked her father to return the horse as well as the long knife, but her father said the white man could not ride because he was injured and, anyway, he wouldn’t mind. 

Her father also said that he was feeding and caring for the horse so he had a right to use it.  He said that her pink-white man should be grateful for all the help and food he had received.

She could not argue too aggressively; it was her father and Ringwind who she had talked into carrying her pink-white man out to the waterhole, and it was her father and Ringwind who would have to return him to the tipi at the end of the day.

 _So, use of the horse will be a fair trade for their time and effort, wouldn’t it?_   _Or would it?_

Julii did not know how her pink-white man would react.  She had no way of explaining this complicated, yet straightforward, justification for using his horse, so she sat silently and watched him sleep on the riverbank.

Looking at his well-developed muscles, Julii began to wonder if she should have taken her father’s advice and let Ringwind stay.

 _What if the pink-white man woke up and wanted to hurt her with the long knife?_   _The very long knife that her father had damaged while cutting down a tree._

Fretting once again, Julii picked up the long shiny knife for the hundredth time that morning and ran her finger over the damaged blade.  The once very sharp edge of the long knife was now very dull and had a large fragment missing from it.  _Would he notice?_   _Of course he would!_  

 _Should she tell him it was like that when she found him?_   _No!_   _Why had her father placed her in such a predicament?_

The long knife had been so beautiful on the day of the pink-white man’s arrival, apart from the blood, but now it was imperfect.

Fearing her shiny pink-white man’s reaction, Julii slid the long knife back into the long hollow thing that had the same shape as the long knife.

After a moment’s thought, she removed the long knife to look at the damage again.  It was still there and the worry was driving her to distraction.  Sliding the long knife back into its cover, Julii moved it further away from her pink-white man’s hand.

 _Now, he would have to move to reach it._   _Even if he moved with the speed of a snake again, she would have time to run away._   She felt confident that she could do it because she was the fastest of her peers and his leg had not yet fully healed.

Julii noticed that her shiny pink-white man’s face was turning red in the sun.  _That was interesting._   _Was he becoming angry in his sleep?_   _No._   _He was turning red because of exposure to sunlight._

She wondered if her pale brown skin would be a light pinkish white color like his if she stayed out of the sun.  _Her skin had always been a lot lighter than everyone else in her tribe._   She imagined herself with pinkish white skin color like him but it felt wrong.  _She wouldn’t want to be so insipid._   _Her brown skin, even though it was lighter than most in her tribe, was a far healthier color than his pale skin._  

She felt guilty about judging him by something so far out of his control as the tone of his skin.  She knew that he could not have any control over that.  Then she realized she would never be pinky-white like him. She had helped her mother give birth to five children and they all had darker skin despite having never even seen the sun.

As she poked him with her finger, Julii thought she saw signs of him waking.  It was nice to think that she knew him well enough to know one of his signs. 

 _Yes, his eyes were opening._   He was looking at her with some kind of new expression.  _What was it?_   _No longer disdain or anger or hate._   _What was it?_   _It was surrender._

Julii had seen that same look in the eyes of many dying deer.  _Does he think I am going to kill him?_  She spoke to put him at his ease and comfort him but the tone of his reply showed no sign of understanding.  His unintelligible words sounded sharp and unfriendly as he said:  “Where am I?”

Julii could tell that these were three individual words but she could not understand any of them.  She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders to tell him so. 

The pink-white -man thought for a moment, then he had an idea.  Tapping his chest he said:  “Robert”.

Why had she not thought of using her name?  _This was just embarrassing!_   _His name is Robert!_   _Of course!_   _Start with something common to both.  Like a name!_  

She had been rehearsing all kinds of words that were going to impress him but he had simply used his name.

Her ego a little bruised, Julii tapped her own chest and said, “Julii”. 

Robert repeated the word.  “Julii”. 

 _Now he had the simple yet effective idea of repeating her name._   _Why had she not thought of repeating his name?_   _Was she becoming slow like the child of too closely-related parents?_   She wondered how much of a fool her pink-red-white man must believe her to be.  _This was so embarrassing!_

Julii searched for signs of derision on his face, but he just pointed to the sun and spoke in a mater-of-fact way.  “What day is this?” 

Then, “How long have I been here?” 

Julii understood that these were questions because of his tone.  Looking up at the sun, she searched for the clue that would give his questions meaning.

She wanted to impress him with her intelligence but there were no clues in the sun and, once again, the words were unknown to her.    Her awkward situation was made worse by the brightness of the sun momentarily blinding her.  Now she was sitting on the ground rubbing her eyes like a stupid child.  _What is happening?_

In search of something impressive to do or say, Julii ran her mind through everything she knew about her pink-red-white man. 

  _What did she know?_   _The fact that he spoke different words meant there must be others out there who listen to, and understand, those words._   _This man, Robert, had obviously not been out there alone._  

 _Therefore, he must have come from another tribe._   _Choose an object common to both tribes and compare the words._  

Feeling very clever with herself, Julii pointed to her hair and said:  “hair”. 

He immediately understood what she was trying to do.  He pointed to his hair and said something unintelligible.

Julii was happy.  She did not feel so stupid anymore.  There was definitely another way of forming words and all she had to do was learn them all.  

 _This was incredible._   _This was an opportunity to learn a whole new set of words._   She pointed to the sky and said:  “Sky”.

Once again, he pointed up and said something unintelligible, but now she had four of his words: “sword”, “Robert”, “hair” and “sky”.  This was going to be simple and a whole lot of fun.

 

 


	5. Reluctant respect

####  Reluctant respect

 

Ringwind had never liked the sleeping Robert, but after he woke up, he developed an even deeper hatred of Julii’s pink-white man.  She would have been very happy to share her shiny pink-white man with her best friend, but Ringwind would not even make the effort to try talking to Robert.

Quite literally, a world of learning was right there at his fingertips but Ringwind was too rude to join in. 

She had never seen Ringwind be mean before, but now, whenever he found the opportunity, Ringwind was rude to her Robert. 

Luckily, Robert would never understand what Ringwind was saying about him because her pink-white man had absolutely no interest in learning Julii’s words.

Every day she would pump him for more of his words and he would happily talk for hours but, much to her amazement, he had no interest in learning hers. 

 _How could he miss such a wonderful opportunity to learn?_   It made no sense to Julii but it did give her more time to learn from him.  She felt a little selfish but it wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to teach her words while spending every free moment with him.

It annoyed her that she still had to fetch water, skin the jack rabbits, and butcher the deer that Ringwind and her father killed.  She no longer enjoyed doing any of it.  She no longer sat with the other girls and laughed about Ringwind and the other boys.  All she wanted to do was get back to her Robert.

The girls teased her.  They said she was in love with Robert.  Julii told them that her only interest in him was learning his words.  It surprised her how stressful not telling the truth could be.  She had never not told the truth before; she had never needed to not tell the truth before.  Everyone in her tribe knew what everyone else was doing and thinking, so not telling the truth had never made any sense before.

Things then got much more complicated when not telling the truth once, as it led to having to not tell the truth a second and third time.  Julii had not prepared herself for her not telling the truth leading to the need for more not telling the truth.  

This spiral of deceit all started when one of the girls asked Julii, “If you only want to learn his words, why did you sit with him during all of the days he slept through fever?” 

This forced Julii to simply make-up: “I needed to keep his throat clear or he would suffocate.”

But then another of the girls asked: “If that is true, why do you still sit by his side when he sleeps by the waterhole?”  This necessitated another untruth in order to support the previous untruth.  “The leaves on the back of his head must be changed regularly.”

But this was not the truth either.  Her Robert’s head had healed days ago.  The only reason she still bound leaves to his head with a strip of hide was because she had not told the truth and needed to perpetuate her deceit.  It all felt very stressful.

Now the untruth that had barely silenced the girls had to be perpetuated even with her Robert.  Every day she had to change his leaves while telling him he still needed them. 

 _The very man she had wanted to completely reveal herself to was now being misled because of an untruth told to others._   She hoped that he would never find out that she had not told the truth.  _This was all so horribly stressful!_

Julii constantly felt as though she was about to get caught for doing something bad. The only thing she had done was say words that were not the truth for no personal gain, and she hadn’t hurt another.  _Why did it feel so bad?_   _This was unbearable!_

In a kind of self-imposed exile, Julii spent more and more time alone with her pink-red-white man.  She told herself it was because she liked learning but it was just easier than making up untruths about her feelings.

Her pink-white man never asked awkward questions that forced her to not tell the truth, not even about his wounded head.  He just taught her new words, and with those words, new knowledge. Because of her shiny pink-white man, because of her Robert, Julii now knew things that no one else in her tribe had ever known.  Things like the fact the long pieces of wood tied to his legs with hide were called “splints”.

Another word in the growing number of words in Julii’s new world was “crutch”. 

And after a while, Robert could use the crutches Julii had made him to leave the tipi and hobble to the waterhole under his own power. 

This was a far better arrangement for Julii because she no longer had to answer all those searching questions as her father and Ringwind carried him.

Now, they could walk slowly together and, once there, they would sit and communicate and.  Although Robert had run out of things to point to, Julii was now ready to focusing on conceptual words.

He would say worlds like “boat” while floating a leaf on the water. 

Robert would say: “carriage.”, then he would draw something in the dirt being pulled by horses on round wooden things called “wheels”. 

The wheels had things inside them that Robert drew and called “spokes”.

Julii already knew what a horse, even two horses, looked like, but she did not imagine they would enjoy being tied to a big wooden structure like a carriage. 

Julii asked if he had actually seen one of these things for himself and Robert talked of a place where there were hundreds of carriages and thousands of horses.

Robert also talked of a thing called “house”. A house, _not a horse_ , was a tipi made of rocks or wood, _not hide_ ,  and many houses together made a thing called a “street”. 

Julii loved hearing about all of these strange and wonderful things but began to wonder if such an extraordinary place could really exist?  Sometimes a drawing in the dirt or Robert’s descriptions would be too fantastic to believe.  She wondered if he was making it all up.

 _Had she caught the ability to not tell the truth from him?_   That was very possible because she had never done it before meeting him.  She felt gullible and wanted to be cautious but she really liked the fact that Robert admired her ability to learn.  She could see it in his face sometimes, and that made her very keen to believe his fantastic claims.

Sometimes he said ridiculous things like:  “A thing called a street had big stone or wood houses on both sides for as far as the eye can see.”

He said these things as though they were in no way special.  Then he would add outrageous statements like:  “And in the wide gap between the houses, hundreds of carriages carried tons of cargo and hundreds of people.”

Eventually, and without noticing the change, Julii and Robert were having conversations.  No longer one word, a drawing, then another word, whole series of words were being exchanged.  Within each series there would be another new word, which meant Julii learned another, then another, and another until she became proficient in his tongue.  Each new word somehow carried Julii away from her tribe towards an unknown existence which felt a lot like her destiny.

So, when the splints came off and Robert said it was time for him to leave, Julii could not even consider the idea of not leaving with him.

 

 

The Shiloh trench

 

Julii had seen Ringwind attacked by a swarm of bees while collecting honey on more than one occasion.  She had seen a wild pig open the flesh on his arm only moments before her father’s arrow killed the ugly beast.  Julii had even held his hand as the tribe danced his mother up to the sky gods, but she had never seen Ringwind cry as he did on the morning of her departure.

Letting go his protective shell completely, he had even begged her not to climb onto Robert’s horse; but her shiny pink-white man was her destiny.  It hurt to leave but she knew it would hurt even more to stay. 

Looking back over her shoulder as she left made Julii feel so deeply sorry for Ringwind; they had always been as close as brother and sister. 

Julii felt cruel for the first time in her life.  She wanted to make Ringwind feel better, but the only cure for his pain was staying, so she turned to face in the direction the horse was slowly moving.  She would be out of sight soon.  _Not being able to see her may heal Ringwind._

She knew that was not true but thinking that way made her feel less cruel.  She knew that leaving was the only logical thing to do but these feelings of cruelty made Julii feel sad.  She leaned her head harder onto Robert’s shoulder to feel the certainty of contact.

The gray cloth felt soft at first, but the horse’s constant movement made it rub up and down until it felt rough on her cheek.  She could easily have lifted her head, but the chafing of the gray material distracted her and caused less discomfort than thinking about Ringwind, so she kept it there.

Searching for more distractions, Julii concentrated on the movement of her naked pelvis.  She could feel the horse’s prickly hair but also its powerful muscles moving effortlessly below her.

Fetching firewood had kept the beast fit and strong, and she took comfort in the memory of Robert being pleased by the condition of at least one of his possessions.  She threaded her hands tighter around his waist and pulled her body even closer against his.

Julii could not afford to relax because she had not yet convinced Robert to take her all the way to his world.  The best she could do was persuade him to take her to the edge of her world.  To the place she, and all of her tribe, always stopped; the boundary of her tribal land, the boundary that had been obeyed for generations.  The elders never said what was on the other side of the boundary, but everyone knew from childhood that it must be bad.

As the prickly hairs grew more and more intrusive on her bare flesh, Julii schemed and connived a reason for Robert to take her past the tribal boundary and with him to her destiny.

Her first attempt was to try to convince him by saying: “you will need me to hunt for food.”

But that argument did not make any sense because there was a great haunch of venison hanging from his saddle.  _Why had her father given her pink-white man venison?_   _It was more meat than both of them could eat in a week._

Trying a different tack, Julii started listing the things she could do.  “I can fetch water.”

“I can make fire.”

“I can skin deer and sew hide.”

But she could feel Robert’s disinterest through the tensing of his shoulder. 

She was grasping at the wind and he knew it but her mind still searched feverishly for the one thing only she could provide.  So, when the words eventually spilled out, they surprised both of them.  “I love you.”

Until this moment, the word “love” had been just one more simple word learned by the waterhole but it felt so powerful when used in this context.

Robert stopped the horse, turned his head in the tight yellow thing that Julii now knew to be called a “collar”, and stared at her.  His eyes showed confusion. 

 _No, it was more than confusion.  It was pain and angst and shame and frustration and wrongdoing._   _Yes, it was wrong to love her back._   _Loving her was wrong?_   _How could loving her be wrong?_   _How can something so natural, instinctive and predestined be wrong?_

Robert said nothing, turned back to the front, kicked the spurs into the flanks of the horse and continued their journey in the unbearable and unnatural silence he had maintained since leaving her village.

Julii was hurting and confused.  She searched for something, anything, to give herself hope.  _At least he had carried her past her tribal boundary_ but, when she thought about that, it counted for naught because he had no idea where their boundary was.  He had absolutely no idea that they had even passed it.

Julii wanted to be honest with Robert but she did not have the courage to tell him they had passed the boundary.  _On the other hand, he had not asked to be told, so he really did not want to know._   _Did he?_   _Or did he?_ _No, he did not._ _Or did he?_ _No!_

She wanted to show how hurt she was feeling because of his rejection.  She wanted to teach him a lesson because of that horrible look he had given her.  She wanted to withhold something from Robert to punish him and hurt him back but the only thing she had to withhold was her presence.  He did not seem too keen to keep that, so she hung onto him even harder.

Alternating her cheek to prevent just one side of her face becoming red, Julii sensed something in the air.  It was an, as yet, faint but nasty smell, and it was growing with every step of the horse.  _What was the smell?_   _Was it death?_

As a child, Julii and Ringwind had played under the scaffolds where her people placed the dead, so she knew the nasty smell that dead bodies give off, but only in small, tolerable amounts.  What she was smelling now was clearly death but the overwhelming volume defied any understanding.

 _A giant must have died._   Julii had never seen or heard of giants but a dead giant was the only logical explanation for such an overpowering and profoundly disturbing smell.

Positioned as she was, Julii could not see what was immediately ahead of Robert but she knew something was wrong because his body stiffened and he pulled the horse to a halt. 

Curious, she looked up and over his shoulder to see for herself, and nothing in her short life could have prepared her for what lay ahead.

The landscape for as far as the eye could see was devastated.  Trees were broken in half like twigs.  Open grassland was chewed-up as though a stampede of giant beasts had passed through.  _No, not passed through but deliberately and maliciously destroyed the land._

Amongst the carnage, Julii could see many of those awful wild pigs.  They were digging in the ground and pulling quite heavy things out of the earth.  _Were they tree roots?_   She could not tell exactly, but whatever they were, the pigs were tearing at them with their huge teeth and tusks.

Looking all around and into the distance she could see more wild pigs.  There seemed to be hundreds of them all over the vast field.  There were more pigs than Julii knew existed, all pulling at the ground and gorging themselves.  _They were disgusting._

Laying her head back down on Robert’s shoulder helped Julii escape the horror, but as she turned her head, she spotted a vast river and there in the distance was a giant canoe.  _No, not a canoe, a boat._

Robert had taught her the word “boat” while sitting by the waterhole but his floating leaf had done nothing to prepare her for the shock of the real thing.

It lay alongside the riverbank billowing white smoke from tall straight branch-less trees.  The giant canoe “boat” had a great round thing at the back.  The round thing was bigger around than the base of her father’s tipi.

The round thing at the back of the canoe-boat suddenly gave a shudder and, after a brief pause, began to turn.  It slipped until the water made purchase on the flat cross boards placed all around the wheel.

 _How could that huge wheel be moving?_   _What in the world would be powerful enough to make that wheel turn?_

The branch-less trees now billowed black smoke from their pointed tops as the giant canoe-boat moved slowly forward away from the riverbank.  Now the billowing smoke was white again.  _Was the canoe-boat communicating?_  

Julii had heard the elders talk about communicating with smoke. 

_Is this what the elders had been talking about?_

Movement in the corner of her eye took Julii’s attention away from the canoe-boat to the middle of the torn-up field where a great line of freshly turned earth stretched off into the distance.

At the far end of the line of earth, men in blue pants and brown tops stood in what Julii could now see was a long trench.  The men were digging up more earth and tossing it onto the long pile which stretched the length of the trench.

Searching for meaning in this overwhelming scene, Julii spoke a single word: “Why?” 

Robert’s answer was very somber.  “It’s a mass-grave.”

Three things immediately hit Julii.  The first was: _How clever of her Robert to know that this is a mass-grave after seeing it for such a short time._   The second was: _How can the sky gods take someone from below the ground?_   And the third: _Why is the trench so long?_

Pondering this last thought, Julii thought Robert must have made a mistake.  _Surely, there cannot possibly be enough bodies to fill it._   _Can there even be that many people in the world?_

Then a fourth thing hit her like a rock; _the heavy objects the pigs were digging up were not tree roots, they were men.  The pigs were pulling hundreds of men from just under the ground._

 _How can that be?_   _This must be why the elders told her never to cross their tribal boundary._   _The world outside her own was unbearable._

In a desperate attempt to stabilize her mind and make some sense of what she was seeing, Julii pointed to a flat thing.  It was piled high with bodies and being pulled across the field by horses.  “Carriage?”

She felt clever saying the word just as Robert had taught her to, but Robert’s melancholy and disinterested reply made her angry.  “No.  It’s a wagon.”

 _This is just too unfair!_   She wanted to berate him.  He had described a wooden thing bearing people being pulled by horses on wheels with spokes, and that horrifically adorned flat thing fitted exactly his description of a carriage.

Holding her tongue, Julii silently repeated the word _wagon_.  She watched as men in blue pants and brown tops, with yellow clothes covering their nose and mouths, worked alongside the wagons.

They were dragging up even more bodies, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bodies from just under the ground.  The bodies were being carried to the wagons where they were dumped on top of each other.

Many of the bodies wore gray, like Robert, and many were dressed in the blue colored clothing like the digging men.  Unlike the digging men, the dead bodies wore blue top and bottom.

Looking more closely at the men carrying bodies and the men digging in the trench, Julii noticed that they were not wearing brown tops.  _Their upper bodies were naked and their skin was very dark brown; even darker than her own people’s skin._

At that fascinating moment, a bee sped past Julii’s ear faster than any bee she had ever heard before.  She felt it glance her hair and could smell singeing as though she was leaning too close to a cooking fire.  _How can that be?_

A loud _bang_ arrived in the same ear that heard the bee.  Julii looked in the direction of the bang.  In the distance, a white man in blue, top and bottom, was pointing a long, leafless, branch at her.

A small, pretty puff of white smoke was drifting away from him on the gentle breeze.  _Was he trying to communicate with smoke?_   _Was he answering the canoe-boat’s smoke signals?_

Robert surprised Julii by turning the horse towards the blue man and kicking his spurs into its flanks.  The horse, with Julii clinging desperately to Robert on its back, was now galloping towards the man with the smoking branch.

 _Did Robert know him?_   _Was she about to meet one of Robert’s tribe?_   He was wearing the same clothes as Robert wore, only his were the blue color.  _Was the man with the smoking branch related to Robert?_   _No!_

The man in blue turned and started running towards the long trench, discarding his long branch as he ran.  He looked back over his shoulder at Robert, and Julii saw the most awful fear and panic in his eyes.

Ten paces from the blue man, Robert pulled his damaged sword from its shiny scabbard.  Julii instinctively knew what was about to happen but she could not believe it.  Sure enough, Robert hit the blue man in the head with his sword as they galloped passed him.  The man’s blue hat was cut in two and he fell to the ground in an explosion of blood.

Julii was in a state of shock.  This act of violence had been impossibly brutal and so cold.  She wanted to dismount.  She wanted to run all the way back to the safety of her home; but more blue men, all with long, smoking, leafless branches, ran from the trench.

 _More bees._   _More smoke._   But this time Robert did not run at them.  He turned the horse and galloped with all speed for the nearest trees.

 

 


	6. Pursuit

####  Pursuit

 

Robert drove his big, strong horse to the edge of exhaustion.  Julii could feel its powerful haunches fading underneath her naked flesh.

 _Robert was no fool._   _He was clever._   _He must know that his horse is at its end, and yet he keeps pushing it faster and further away from that place he called Shiloh._   _Did Robert mean to kill his horse?_   _He murdered the blue man._   _Killing a horse would be nothing by comparison._

 _Who was this shiny white-man that fate had sent her?_   _Who was he really?_   _Was he going to kill her too?_

Julii cast her mind back to the blood on his sword on the day she found him by the waterhole.  _How much blood was on his sword that day?_   _One man’s blood?_   _Two men’s blood?_   _Ten?_   _How many men had Robert murdered on the day she found him?_   _Or even, in his whole life?_

 _Robert had been alive for at least twenty years._   _If he killed one man a day since the age of, let’s say, fifteen…_   _Is fifteen the age when white men start murdering?_   _Could he have started even younger?_

Her shiny pink-white man had never spoken about what happened to him on the day they met.  She asked him but he became sad and said nothing.  Now she knew why he said nothing.

She also knew that he loved his big strong horse.  He had never said so but she could see it in the way Robert treated him.  Even so, he was killing him.  Robert had never said that he loved her either, and even worse, he had never treated her with the love he treated his horse.  _Was she about to die too?_

Robert slowed then stopped the horse.  He said nothing and Julii’s mind became a turmoil of fear and panic and sadness and loss.  _Is this the end?_   _Am I going to die now?_   _Will the big shiny sword hurt?_

Julii thought briefly about running away as Robert dismounted and led the horse into a concentrated thicket of trees.  _This was a good place to kill someone._   _This is where she would choose to kill someone if she could choose to kill someone._

So dense were the bushes among the trees Robert had to force his way through.  Julii felt as though she were being led to somewhere bad, somewhere evil.  _Was he going to all this trouble and effort because he wanted no-one to witness her murder?_

After tethering the horse to a branch, he turned, looked up at Julii on top of his loved and exhausted horse, and held out his hand.

Julii simply stared at it.  _Should she kick the horse and ride away to save her life?_   _Would those hide things called reins come free from the branch?_   _Would life without her shiny pink-white man be worth living?_   _She could take the horse and ride for home, but then what?_   _A life within her old boundary would seem so small now and Robert would not be there._

 _No, she must be with Robert whatever the consequence._   Taking her chances, she took his hand, looped her leg over the top of the saddle and slid to the ground next to him.

Julii stood silent and still and watched Roberts’s hands for telltale signs of movement.  She wanted to be ready for the moment he reached for his sword or did something that was intended to hurt her.  She braced herself, but he simply walked back to the edge of the thicket to look in the direction they had come from.

 _Was she going to live?_   _What was Robert looking for?_   _Was he making sure that there were no witnesses to see what he was about to do to her?_   _He had not smiled or shown any sign of warmth while lowering her from the horse._

Then it dawned on Julii.  _Robert was looking for the blue men from the place he called Shiloh?_   _He wanted to know if the blue men were following._

Julii’s fear turned to panic.  The blue men must be very angry at Robert.  It seemed like another world ago but her Robert had murdered one of their tribe for no apparent reason.  _What would they do to him if they found him?_   _What would they do to her if they found them together?_

Julii was no longer able to predict even the most basic of events because everything was new and odd.  She had no idea what was going to happen to her.  She could not predict what even the next moment would bring or even the behavior of the man she loved.

The man who had once been so predictable was now a completely unknown quantity.  The man who lay on the floor of her father’s tipi with a broken leg, or sat by the water hole talking, had disappeared.  Outside the boundary of her world, Robert had become irrational and worse, he had become brutal, callous and violent.

Robert returned from the edge of the thicket looking worried. He seemed angry, confused and irritated and would not look at Julii. She started taking slow, fearful and thought-filled steps backwards, away from Robert, as he walked to the horse and stroked its back tenderly.

 _There it was again._   _Robert always showed great affection to his horse but not for her._   _She had made a mistake._   _Leaving with Robert was a mistake, and now she was trapped!_

Distracted, Robert turned to look at Julii.  Her terrified expression seemed to take him by surprise.  He looked confused.  He took a gentle, controlled, step in her direction, just as he would towards a skittish horse.  He held out his hand.

Julii stared at the outstretched hand.  She wanted to take it but held herself back.  _Was his expression the one he used on skittish horses, or someone he wanted to bring closer in order to harm them?_

Ordinarily she would have fled when faced with such danger.  She was a fast runner, faster even than Ringwind, and more nimble than Robert.  She could easily beat him through this kind of undergrowth.  _But without her pink-white man, what would be the point?_

Robert’s face showed genuine sorrow, guilt and sympathy.  She felt terrible about hurting her Robert, but she could not stop walking backwards.

 _Where was she going?_   Julii knew that she would be unable to leave.  She would have to die here if that is what Robert wanted, but even so, she still felt sorry for the hurt on his face.  She hated upsetting her Robert, but her feet would not stop moving her away from him.

Julii suddenly fell backwards into the thick foliage.  Something behind her had caught the back of her ankles, taking her off balance and tripping her.

 _Now it was all over._   _Now she was completely at Robert’s mercy._

Confusing and contradictory emotions pulsed through Julii’s body.  She wanted to rise.  _She must get to her feet._   She wanted to be standing when he did it.  _She had to be standing!_

Julii really wanted to look him in the eye.  She wanted to smell his breath.  She wanted to feel his touch one last time but, before she had time to stand, a huge brown man leapt to his feet from the place she had tripped.

He was tall, well-muscled and angry.  His white teeth shone in contrast to his dark lips and he moved on Robert with the motion and speed of a powerful wolf.

Frozen on the ground, she watched Robert draw his sword and stop the brown man by holding its tip to his throat.  _Was Robert going to harm him to save her, or harm him then her?_

A woman’s cry of agony near Julii’s ear made her turn so fast she hit her head on the base of a large tree.  Seeing bright flashes of light, Julii was close to passing out.  Her thoughts were spinning.  She tried hard to clear her mind.

Shaking her head Julii fought to regain focus until there in front of her was a beautiful brown woman lying on the dead foliage writhing in agony.  Julii immediately understood why.

Everything that had been occupying her mind was now replaced by the need to begin a cool and efficient routine.  There was something about to happen that no one or nothing in the world could stop.

 _Something must be done and thoughts of dying would have to wait until later._   Without hesitation, Julii crawled closer to the woman and comforted her with a gentle touch to her forehead.

Julii had seen her mother do this five times before, and Julii knew exactly what to do next.  Moving down the woman’s body, Julii saw what she pretty much knew would be there.  The top of the baby’s head was pushing its way out.

“Water!”  Julii’s order was so sharp, so knowing, that Robert and the big brown man stopped and just stood and watched in astonishment. 

Robert still held this sword to the big brown man’s throat, but his attention was locked on Julii and the brown woman.

The big brown man seemed to have forgotten that there was a long sharp blade pressing in to the thin flesh protecting his wind pipe.

“Water!  Now!”  Julii raised her voice to get attention, but she was in total control.  She was the voice of authority and this time Robert did not stand gawking like a man in shock.

He lowered his sword, sheathed it and then retrieved the deer skin water sack attached to his saddle.  Walking to Julii, he offered her the flopping container. 

With a matter-of-fact nod of her head, Julii made it clear the water was not for her.

Robert obediently knelt down next to the brown woman and offered her a drink.  She gulped at the water taking desperate mouthfuls.  Her need for water replacing fear, panic and writhing agony for just a moment.

Julii now used the seriousness of her glare to get the big brown man involved.  He understood immediately.  He was supposed to kneel down on the other side of his woman and help.

As soon as the baby girl hit the air outside, her lungs filled and her healthy cries began.  Julii held the beautiful little one in her arms and looked at the most peculiar scene she had ever witnessed.

Robert, the man who moments before she feared, held the water skin tenderly to the brown woman’s lips while his own mouth and eyes hung wide open in wonder.

The brown woman let the spout of the water skin lay between her lips, no longer drinking, while her eyes poured tears and stared at the tiny human being that she had made.

The big brown man stared at his daughter and cried just as hard as the brown woman.  The sight of such a powerful man crying was an extraordinary and beautiful image for Julii.  Such overwhelming surrender, love, adoration and pride for the thing he loved completely made him the strongest man Julii had ever seen.

After a long silent pause, Julii got back to the job in hand. She placed the cord, which joined the baby to its mother, between her teeth and bit down hard; just as she had seen her mother, and other mothers in her tribe do.

It was an act of separation but it joined the baby, the mother and the father to her.  Julii felt somehow part of their family.  She looked at Robert and smiled.  She wanted him to be the fifth member of her tiny tribe, but he no longer wanted to touch the mother.  _He seemed shocked and disgusted by his own actions._

Julii passed the baby to the big brown man.  His eyes met hers in thanks.  His eyes then turned to his woman and they connected in a way Julii had never seen two people connect before. 

For a fleeting moment they were one person.  He, she and the baby were one entity and Julii was the outsider.

 

 


	7. The depth of Roberts prejudice

####  The depth of Roberts prejudice

 

Julii completed the last task of the birthing process with ease.  She had paid attention while five mothers did it for their exhausted daughters.

On each of those occasions, the final act had brought a wonderful sense of calm and achievement.  Here, amongst the trees, the bloody red sack falling gently from the brown woman provoked memories of Robert’s violence.

Julii looked from the bloody mass in her hands to Robert.  _Was he still dangerous?_   _No, his face was serene._   For some reason he was displeased with the mother, but he stared at the beautiful and perfect new baby with a pure expression.

Julii had seen that expression on men’s faces before.  Even men who were not the father of the new child found something about new life remarkable, and her Robert was no exception.  Then Julii suddenly found herself experiencing irrational feelings of jealousy toward the child; _Robert had never looked at her with such raw emotion, she would have remembered that._

When Robert turned from the baby to look at Julii, his serene expression changed to confusion then something that could have been interpreted as pain or anger.  The act of birth, which somehow bonded them, was broken.  All four of the adults now returned to their previously fearful and confused state.

Julii stood and walked away from Robert. 

Robert stood and walked towards Julii.

Julii turned to run and Robert grabbed her by the arm. 

Julii screamed and the big brown man was upon Robert in an instant.

Fighting on the ground, Robert kept shouting in a ferocious voice:  “Get your hands off me, nigger!”  “I’m gonna kill you, nigger!”

Julii had grown to like the way Robert called her “red nigger”.  She had believed it to be a term of endearment, but now she felt betrayed and angry. 

It was a kind of anger she had never felt before.  A kind of anger she had never imagined herself capable of feeling. 

Falling to her knees, Julii slapped Robert’s face over and over again.  Her actions were so surprising that both men stopped to stare at her.

The brown man was the first to overcome his surprise, and using the distraction to his advantage, he stood up, picked up the discard sword and stood over Robert.

The sword moved rapidly upwards in the brown man’s hand and Julii could see that he intended to kill her Robert.

As the sword began its devastating downward swing, Julii dived across Roberts’s upper body.  _His face, neck and chest would be protected._   This was all she could think about.  It was spontaneous.  No rational consideration had been applied to the situation.  _Robert was in danger and she loved him._

Julii squeezed her Robert so hard she feared crushing him, but she knew her shiny pink-white man was strong enough to survive any amount of pressure that her body could apply.  _Would she feel the blow of the sword?_   _Would she die instantly or would there be a long painful death?_

Julii imagined the damage the sword would do to her back.  Her experiences while hunting told her that if the sword struck flesh she may recover but if it hit the spine she would not.  _Where is the blow?_   _It is taking too long._

Looking up, Julii saw the brown woman holding her baby in one arm and the big brown man’s sword arm in the other.  The brown woman had used the last of her strength to stand.  She had given her very last strength to save Julii and Robert from death at the hands of her angry man.

The big brown man could have easily shaken off a one armed woman; particularly a woman as weak as his.  He could have continued the blade’s downward thrust without any problem, even with the weight of her and his new baby attached to his arm, but he had understood and reacted to her wishes absolutely.

The brown woman immediately fell to the ground completely spent, and the big brown man simply dropped the sword and followed her down.  Cradling her head, he spoke gentle, loving, caring words into her ear.

Once again, Julii was jealous.  Robert had never said such purely instinctive, gentle, words of love and care in her ear.  She smiled at the brown couple.  She could not help herself.  These brown people, who clearly had nothing, had everything Julii wanted.

Then, remembering her situation, Julii turned back to Robert and raised herself rapidly from over his face.  _What would happen now?_   _She had hit him very hard._   _She had seen him kill a man for no reason, and now he had several reasons to kill her._   _Would he kill her?_   _Should she run?_

He looked strange.  No tears were falling from his eyes but he was in unbearable agony.  _Had the sword struck his lower body?_   _Had the brown man struck in a place where she did not feel it?_   _Robert’s body had not recoiled like someone who had been struck, surely she would have felt that?_

Julii looked for signs of bleeding but there were none.  _How could her Robert be in so much pain?_   _It could not be her slaps._   _She had seen him bite down on a piece of hide while her father re-set his broken leg._   _He did not look close to crying then, and he must have been in much worse pain than now._

Julii took another look at Robert’s body but there were definitely no cuts.  She had to know.  She had to ask.  “What is it?”  “Where are you hurt?”

“You’re an Injun, for God’s sake.”  Robert turned away unable to even look at Julii.  Raising himself up onto his feet, he fought something deep inside himself as he walked over to stroke his horse.

Julii wondered what an “Injun” was.  She looked at the brown couple, and their sad expression told her that they knew what an Injun was.  She asked for clarity with her expression, but the brown couple were reluctant to say.  The brown woman just looked at her man and showed him what to do with a motion of her eyes.  The brown man understood and bent down to help Julii stand.

Thanking the brown man for his kindness, Julii walked over to comfort Robert, but his body tensed and angry words cascaded from his mouth: “Get your goddamn Injun hands off of me!”

Something about Robert’s tone made no sense.  Something was making him angry, but his voice quivered like someone on the verge of tears.  It was filled with pain, confusion and fear.  He was clearly facing demons that she could not comprehend and he could not easily shake off.

Julii did not know how to help her Robert.  He seemed to need a shoulder to cry on while pushing hers away.  Right at that emotion-charged moment, a strange man’s voice shouted from outside the thicket.  “We know you’re in there, Johnny-Reb!  Now you come on out of there, you hear?”

Julii, Robert, the big brown man and the brown woman froze.  Each looked at the other for understanding, but none of them offered an answer.

Another voice shouted from outside the thicket: “We know you’re in there, you murdering bastard.  You best come out, and bring the squaw with ya.”

This second voice carried more authority than the first.

Robert lifted his sword and took a resigned step towards the voices outside the thicket but, before he could complete a single step, the big brown man grasped his arm to stop him.  This time Robert did not recoil from the brown man’s touch.  He watched the brown man press his finger to his lips in a way that asked for silence.

The big brown man then effortlessly, and gently, lifted his brown woman and child lovingly into his arms and walked from the thicket.  When he broke free of the foliage, Julii and Robert heard him say: “What you mean, bring the squaw with me, boss?”

Then they heard the first voice say: “It’s another one of them runaway niggers, sir.”

The second voice asked: “You seen a rebel captain and an Injun squaw riding a bay, boy?”

“Don’t know nothing about no cracker captain riding no bay, boss.  Just me, my woman and my baby in there, boss.”

The second voice sounded suspicious.  “Sounded like a bigger commotion in there than just a couple a niggers, boy.”

“You ain’t never seen no commotion till you seen a baby born, boss.”

The second voice sounded surprised.  “Your woman just given birth?”

Then there was a pause, followed by: “Jesus Christ!  Will you look at that, boys?  This here nigger woman just spat that pickaninny out right there in the bushes.”

A third voice quipped: “You gonna call him Moses?”

There was a longer pause, followed by the same third voice: “Because it was born in the bushes?  It’s in the Bible.”

The second voice, the voice of authority, sounded fed up with the owner of the third voice.  “Moses was found in the bulrushes, you ignoramus.  The burning bush talked to Moses.  Jesus, you’re a goddamn nowhere bumpkin.”

The third voice sounded hurt.  “Didn’t get too much church learning where I growed up.”

The second voice changed from sarcastic to curious as it asked:  “What you doing here, boy?”

From in the thicket, Julii heard the brown man reply: “We came all this way cause Mr Lincoln said nigger’s can fight as free men for the Union.  I wanna fight so my daughter here can live her life as a free nigger in the North.”

“Well, good for you, boy.  You hear that boys?  We got ourselves a hero nigger.”  This was the first voice and it sounded deeply mocking.

“Yes, sir.  I is a hero nigger for sure.”

The laughter that followed the brown man’s words was cruel.  Even Julii, with no experience of the white man’s sarcastic ways, could tell it was vicious without even seeing the faces of the men who laughed.

Then the second voice said: “You keep walking up this road till you find a place called Shiloh.  You join the army there, boy.  We got plenty of digging work for a free, hero nigger like you right there.”

“I’m ready to fight, sir.”

All of the men outside the thicket laughed and the third voice said: “Don’t you worry, there’ll be plenty of fighting to be done after you finish digging, boy.”

Julii heard the sounds of many bridles on many horses being mounted.  After the commotion of mounting, the second voice said:  “You see a Johnny-Reb captain and his Injun squaw on the way, you tell Captain Bush when you get to Shiloh, you hear me boy?”

“Yes, sir.  I see anyone like that I’ll be sure to tell you blue boys at Shiloh.  You sure are a sight for sore eyes, yes sir boss.”

The second voice returned to its cruel sarcasm.  “Moses?  Goddamn it, Duffy.  That pickaninny ain’t even a boy.”

At the sound of horses galloping into the distance, Robert looked at Julii with an expression of complete confusion.  His expression made no sense to Julii.  The big brown man had just saved them.  _What could be confusing about that?_   She had to know.  “What is it?  What’s wrong?” 

Robert walked to a fallen log and sat down.  He sounded more defeated and more confused than Julii had ever heard him before.  Even the first time he woke up, close to death, in her father’s tipi he had not sounded so licked.  “He’s a runaway nigger for Christ’s sake.”  “Runaway niggers just don’t save the likes of me!”

 

 


	8. Human property

####  Human property

 

Julii had spent many of the things Robert called “minutes” staring at him, wondering if the brown man had hit him in the head.  Nothing he said made any logical sense, and now he was shouting to drive his point home.  “Why can’t you understand?  That buck is someone’s property!”

Julii’s confused silence caused Robert to speak even louder.  “Don’t you see?  Someone in the South has lost a great deal of money because that nigger and his woman just up and lit out.  I should return them, it is my duty to return them to their rightful owner for a good whopping, and the nigger knows it.”

Looking closer into Julii’s confused face, he sounded bewildered.  “But now I don’t know.  He could have gotten me killed right here by them Yankees but he didn’t.  Why in the hell didn’t he do that?”

 _Had she understood him correctly?_   She thought she knew everything there was to know about the meaning of the words “owner” and “property”.  They were burned into her memory because Robert had shouted them at her by the waterhole after he found the damage to his sword.

He made it clear that his sword and his horse were “owned” by him; they were his “property” and not to be used by just anyone. She had a very strong feeling that in the context of the big brown man, “property” was going to mean something awful.  She asked for clarity: “What is _property_?”

Robert’s answer was curt: “You know what property is.”  Robert lifted his sword, then pointed to his horse.  “These are my property.  I own them.”

Julii looked at Robert in wonder.  _How could a human being be property?_   The concept of ownership was hard enough for Julii to understand; in her tribe no one really owned anything, but surely _a human being cannot be property_.

Slowing her voice, Julii asked for clarity one more time: “Are you saying someone owns the brown man and the brown woman?”

Robert’s answer sounded matter of fact: “That’s exactly what I’m saying.  Someone is way out of pocket right now.”

Then he added, almost as an afterthought: “And now there’s the child, of course.”

“The child?”

She waited for a reply, but Robert was already thinking about other things.  She pushed him for an answer by asking: “The child has just been born.  How can she be someone’s property?”

Standing up, Robert walked to his horse and removed the saddle. Julii had to repeat her question.  Robert didn’t even look over his shoulder as he said: “It’s the law.  All niggers are owned by their masters, even the pickaninny.”

“Pickaninny?”

She had liked the sound of that word when it was said by the men outside the thicket.  She liked it so much, she had repeated it silently in her mind: _pickaninny_ , _pickaninny_ , _pickaninny_.  But now she thought of it as a horrible term for such an innocent being and she hated its sound.

“Yeah, even them nigger kids have value too.”

Once again, Robert sounded like a man whose words should be making sense as he added: “Especially a foal from a fine breeding couple like them two niggers.  Like I said, somewhere in the South a man is missing his property, probably a good hard-working man, a decent God-fearing man who won’t be able to harvest his crops this year.”

Turning to look at Julii, he spoke with empathy: “A man who would have paid a lot of money for them niggers.  I wouldn’t be surprised if niggers as strong as him and her can cost upwards of a thousand dollars to replace.   Maybe even more, the way this war’s going.”

Julii simply could not grasp this reality.  Her Robert did not feel any compassion for the nice brown couple.  _Her Robert, the man she loved, just felt sad for the man who owned the nice brown couple.  This was the act of a monster, not her shiny pink-white man._

Julii was trying to understand how Robert could justify anything he had just told her, when the big brown man returned through the thicket still effortlessly carrying his woman and child.  There was no sign of effort in his breath or his words as he said: “Them Yankees’ve gone further on down the road.”

Robert’s body was tense with rage.  Keeping his back to the brown couple and a surprised Julii, he shouted: “Why’d you go and save me?”

“Didn’t save you.”

The big brown man nodded in Julii’s direction.  “Saved her.”

Laying his woman on the ground, he stood up to face Robert and said: “She’s a kind lady.  She’s got a good heart.  Lucky for you she loves you, or you’d be in the hands of them blue boys right now.”

Julii watched the turmoil raging within her Robert, and then it hit her: _Red nigger!_   _Did he see her as a human being, or was she his possession like these brown niggers were someone’s possessions?_

Then something even more sinister dawned on Julii; _Did Robert let her travel with him because he intended to sell her?_   _Was that all she was to him?_   _Simply a means of making that word he taught her by the waterhole?_   _Profit?_   _Was she there to make him a profit?_

She watched Robert stare at the brown man and ask: “Why’d you come back in here?  You know I’m duty bound to turn you in.”

The brown man pointed to the haunch of venison still attached to the saddle laying on the ground.  “I ain’t got no choice but to take the chance I can lick you.  You got food and water, and my woman ain’t feeling too strong right now.”

Robert moved to stand between the brown man and the venison.  “That food’s for us.  We can’t spare any.”

Julii was angry.  She felt like being a defiant possession.  She walked to the saddle, removed the haunch of venison, and barked an order at Robert: “Make a fire.  These people need feeding.”

Her words made Robert rebel.  Once again, his body became taught and rigid like an immovable tree.  He was clearly not used to taking orders from anyone, let alone a “red nigger” “Injun”.  He spat on the ground defiantly.  “You don’t tell me to make a fire to feed no niggers.”

“How about feeding a red nigger?”

Julii stopped and stared defiantly into Robert’s eyes.  She was angry enough to risk her life now.  “Or if feeding your red nigger possession isn’t important to you, do it for yourself.  I know you white men need to eat because I’ve been feeding one for weeks.”

Turning her back, Julii walked to the brown man and handed him the venison.  Turning to the brown woman, she took the little baby girl lovingly from her exhausted arms.  She could no longer look at Robert.  Anger was subsiding, leaving pathetic fear in its place.  She hoped that her tone had removed the need to stare Robert down because she was too scared to do it again.

All Julii could do now was wait and keep her back to Robert while she held the baby and her nerve.  She simply did not know what was going to be her next move if he refused to make a fire.

Julii could not see what her bitter words had done to Robert but the brown couple could

Robert’s taut, proud body became supple with shame and embarrassment.  Her angry words had cut him down, not like a tree would be cut down - he was still ornery and proud - but he was wounded.

If a tree could be wounded, that is how the brown couple would have described Robert’s demeanor.  Resigning himself, Robert simply went obediently about making a fire.

 

 


	9. Bushwhackers

####  Bushwhackers

 

Last night’s food had been eaten during a heavy silence.  It was more than silence; it was a silence full of inner pain, self-recrimination, repressed anger and seething glances that seemed to speak clearer and louder than any words Julii had ever heard.

It had been an angry silence that dominated them all as they sat by the fire trying to make the venison edible without a cooking pot.  It was a silence that seemed even louder than the dead blue man’s smoking branch on the field at the awful place called Shiloh.

Even before the completion of the tense, inedible, horrible meal, Robert lay down on the ground, a good way away from the fire and the others, and slept restlessly.  There in his misery, he tossed and turned.

Observing his suffering, Julii regretted her treatment of the man she loved.  There was no doubt that he deserved it but expressing herself so clearly would not bring her any closer to the intimacy she craved.

She moved closer and tried to comfort him, but he would not let her cuddle up to him and that rejection hurt.  He would not even let her lie close to him, not even close to his back.

Julii felt cheated by circumstances beyond her control.  It was not her fault that the brown family had entered their strange journey, but it was clearly her that Robert blamed and rejected – pushing her far away.

She had been connected to him on the back of his horse since leaving her home, her family, her world, but now he withheld the security his touch provided because of something outside of her control, and that did not seem fair.  In fact, as she drifted off to an exhausted sleep, it seemed downright cruel.

When she woke in the morning, Julii was feeling less anxious.  She hoped Robert’s bitter feelings for her would have lessened with sleep but he showed no sign of change. 

She expected his mood to improve when they parted company with the nice brown couple, but no one showed any sign of moving.  Julii liked the brown couple, but they upset Robert and she really wanted something to happen.  

As the day went on, neither Robert nor the brown man showed any interest in leaving the thicket.  All day they just sat there looking at each other without speaking.

Julii tried to defuse the brooding tension between them by asking polite questions, but each innocent word that escaped her mouth seemed to build a charge of aggression between the two men.

Even asking their names made Robert angry and when they answered “Matilda and Paul” his body tensed, so Julii simply stopped talking, leaving a massive silence hanging in the charged air between the two men that was even more filled with danger.

The tension was only broken when evening came and Robert silently packed up their few possessions, attached them to the saddle, then walked his horse from the thicket.

Fearing he may leave without her, Julii quickly hugged Matilda, hugged Paul, kissed the beautiful brown baby on the head, and ran after Robert.

Catching him up, Julii saw Robert’s leg move to mount his horse.  He had always mounted first and then easily lifted her up and on to the rear of the horse, but this time she was afraid he would not do it.

Pushing his leg away, she placed her moccasin-covered foot in the stirrup and pulled herself onto the horse.  Robert was clearly surprised by her actions.

Although she looked directly ahead, she could see him staring at her from the corner of her eye.  She noticed the exact moment he worked out why she had done it.  She cursed herself.  _Now she had either offended her Robert or put the idea of leaving her in his mind._   _This was a disaster._

Unable to swing his leg over the rear of the horse, Robert made a shambles of mounting.  He was annoyed.  He pushed back more than usual in the saddle and Julii was forced to slide backwards.

They rode silently south and Julii could feel that everything had changed between them.  Sitting further back on the horse separated them, and there was a new more determined reluctance growing within Robert.

Her hands still touched his body because of necessity, but each step the beast took seemed to make Robert tenser and tenser.  She longed to feel the hurt of her cheek touching his shoulder, but the thought of risking more rejection at this moment was just too daunting.

Julii’s mind plumed the depths of denial for something that would explain his behavior, and somewhere deep down she found something that made her feel less wretched.  _It must be something ahead._   _Yes, the thought of something ahead of them must be upsetting her Robert._

Her denial clung to this thought because it created a problem that both of them must face.  _They were no longer separated._   _It made them a team facing danger together._

With every stride of the horse, she imagined scenes worse than that unthinkable place called Shiloh.  If Robert had been telling the truth, she knew that somewhere ahead of them were places with huge wood and stone tipi-lined streets and, in those streets, carriages and wagons pulled by horses.  _Could there be bodies lying in these streets like the bodies at Shiloh?_   _Would there be bodies in the carriages and wagons that passed between the big stone and wood tipis?_   _Would wild pigs be pulling up those awful decomposing bodies from just under the street?_   _If this was the case, it was no wonder Robert felt apprehensive about her seeing such things._

Soon these fictitious thoughts turned into absolute truths.  _Robert was simply pulling away from her because he was worried about introducing her to such horrors._   She felt warmly towards him.  His irrational behavior was all about protecting her but he need not worry.  _It would be horrible but she could tolerate any amount of horror if he was there too._

While Julii’s denial worked its magic, rational thoughts of self-preservation were trying desperately to bring her back to reality.  Every time the facts came close to getting into her fretting mind, denial told her to think of other things.  It steered her mind towards pleasant memories.  _The brown baby._   _Yes, she had been so small and perfect._   _What will they name her?_   _All of her tiny fingers and toes were such a beautiful brown color._   _That rich brown color made the baby look so healthy, so strong._

These distracting thoughts of the brown baby led Julii’s very tired mind to another convenient construction.  _Was Robert jealous of the brown couple’s color?_   _Did he want to be a beautiful rich brown color like them?_   _Robert had changed radically after meeting the brown people.  Was it because their brown skin made them look so much stronger and healthier than Robert’s pale pinkish-white color?_   _Was it all because of something as simple as envy?_

Waking-up and finding her head rubbing against Robert’s reluctant shoulder caused Julii to panic.  _What if she fell asleep again and fell off?_   _Would he stop and pick her up?_   _Why had Robert decided to travel at night?_

Traveling at night made no sense because he could not see where he was going.  Even something as simple as passing under a tree became dangerous at night.  _And keeping awake was so stressful._

Finding five dead blue men on the road did nothing to settle Julii down.  It all happened so fast.  Robert suddenly dismounted awkwardly and walked cautiously into the darkness.  As her eyes found focus, she watched him bend over each dead body in turn.  Without looking up, he spoke for the first time that night.  “Bushwhackers.”

A new word!  _This was exciting._   Julii wanted to dismount and engage Robert in conversation.  The horse’s hairs poking her naked flesh were now agonizing.  She would have loved to jump down, but she was still too afraid of Robert riding off without her.

In an attempt to involve herself more, she asked: “Are they dead?”

Robert looked from the motionless bodies to Julii.  She couldn’t see his irritated expression in the poor light but she knew it was there.  _What was she saying?_   _Why did she ask such an inane and obviously stupid question?_   _Anyone could see by the positions of the bodies that they were dead._   _If he hadn’t thought her stupid before, Robert was going to think her stupid now!_

In a matter of fact voice he said to no one in particular:  “These must be the Yankee boys that nigger spoke to.”

Afraid of making herself appear even more stupid but equally afraid of missing the chance of communication with her Robert, Julii asked sheepishly: “How can you tell?”

Taking Julii by surprise, Robert spoke to her directly and his reply was not condescending.  “A captain, a sergeant and three troopers.  I heard the noise of at least five horses from the thicket.”

 _This was good._   Julii felt included.  She was terrified by the sight of so much death in a dark, strange place, but Robert was communicating.  In an attempt to keep it going, she bolstered her confidence and asked another question.  “How can you know it was bushwhackers?”

Robert lifted his hand and pointed.  Once again, his voice sounded respectful.  “Money, guns, food, water, weapons all gone, but they left the boots.”

Julii had no idea what the presence of boots was telling Robert, but she was not going push her luck and make the mistake of asking a question a about it just in-case it was too obvious.  She silently watched him conclude his examination of the bodies, then walk back to the horse and mount.  He didn’t make such a mess of it this time and she no longer felt so bad about staying on the horse.

Turning to look over his shoulder, Robert told her: “You keep an eye out behind us.  Let me know the moment you see anyone, right?  You got that?”

Julii did not understand what bushwhackers were, but he had said something that treated her as an equal and required her to respond.  “Right.”

 _That felt better; not stupid or dramatic._   _Her tone and brevity had mirrored his._   _She was a part of Robert’s tribe now._   _They were two parts of one thing acting in unison with the common objective of survival._

The rest of Julii’s night was spent fighting off the burning urge to sleep while engaging in serious surveillance of the moonlit road and trees behind them.

Julii was definitely not going to let Robert down or do something silly to break this new-found bond between them...

Luckily for Julii, her fingers were locked in place around Robert’s waist and that kept her from falling off of the horse as she drifted off to a deep sleep.

 

 


	10. South

####  South

 

Julii woke to find herself laying under her hide blanket.  A campfire had burned and long since died.  By the look of the sun sinking into the west, evening was not far away.  Robert must have lifted her from the horse and laid her on the ground.

_Was he angry about her falling asleep when she should have been watching out for bushwhackers?_

Julii had no memory of him carrying her in his arms, and that annoyed her greatly.  _What a moment to miss._   She was also laying right next to him and must have been so all day.  So much contact with her Robert and no memory of it.  _This was unbearable._

Julii felt Robert beginning to stir and she did not want to miss the opportunity to be close for just a moment longer.  She knew that he would push her away but she needed his touch for just a moment.  Cuddling his back, Julii braced herself for rejection but there was something different.  She could sense something new; something in the movement of his body.

 _Something was changing._   She thought of letting go but the contact, however begrudging, made her feel close and safe.  He was still ridged, and still fighting something inside himself, but this time he was not pushing her away.

Rolling over, Robert simply looked at Julii, moved his arms around her, and pulled her to him.  She felt something warm and wet on her face.

 _They are tears._   Robert’s silent tears were falling into her hair, onto her cheek and into her ear.  His tears fell without restraint.  She did not know what to do or how to help him.  He was a man broken by something unknown to her; something within himself.

“Why did it have to be you?”

Julii heard him repeat the words softly over and over in her ear and she was confused.  _Why did what have to be her?_   _Had she done something to hurt her Robert?_   She could not move to take a look at his expression for clues because he held her too tightly.

Then he was saying something else.  Something odd.  “This is impossible.  I cannot love you.”

These words made absolutely no sense to Julii.  _“Love”, as her Robert had explained it by the waterhole, is clearly something you feel or you don’t feel._   The idea of not being able to love was stupid, according to the vocabulary that Robert had taught her.   _It made no sense._

 _You can only not do something if there is something stopping you from doing it._   Julii was sure she had this right.  _No one can walk through a tree because the tree is solid and will not let you pass._   _No one can live under water because water has no air to breathe._   _A tree will stop you and water will drown you, but love is like walking through air.  It is unrestrained and available to all._   _This is too confusing._

Robert’s body made a completely new movement and, although her mind was oblivious, Julii’s body instantly understood it.  Something about Robert’s touch made the flooding wetness come between her legs.  Something that had never happened to her before was about to happen and Julii could sense it in every single movement he made.  It was an animal reaction.  Robert was no longer fighting the demon inside himself.  He was being propelled by pure animal instinct and Julii’s body was responding without question.

Then there came a tiny pause.  It was only the minutest of movements causing only an infinitesimal delay but to Julii it felt like forever.  _Had he changed his mind?_   She was determined not to allow whatever was causing it to break this magic spell.

Julii could feel Robert’s urgent need to act was being hampered by something.  He was struggling.  _Was it more doubt?_

Risking separation, Julii pushed away from Robert just enough to look into his eyes but his eyes were looking down.  She followed his eyes and what she saw brought massive relief.  _It was those clever little round bone things he called “fly buttons”._

Before this moment she had been pleased with the simplicity of joining two pieces of fabric together without the need for permanent stitches, but now she saw them as an insurmountable barrier.  _They were taking forever to disconnect._   The thing driving her and Robert had no tolerance for delays.  It needed to happen now.  Both clawed at those stupid, pathetic little buttons.

Julii had seen her parents making love by the fire at night under their hide blanket, but she had never seen or understood the physical act of connection.

What was coursing through her now was something that needed to be experienced to be truly understood.  Robert was inside her and suddenly there was no room inside her body or mind for anything else.

Everything inside of her let go in one overpowering moment.  Her past, her fears, her thoughts of Shiloh, her fear of Robert leaving or staying, and the world in general no longer existed for Julii.

In that moment, Robert and she were one writhing entity and there was no words in the vocabulary of his language or hers to describe what she felt.  Call it an exhausting explosion or a draining climax or wearying detonation, whatever it was sent Julii instantly into a dream-filled sleep.

Sometime later they woke in darkness and did it again.  This act repeated itself until they woke up in daylight and did it again and again.  The discovery of sex seemed to have sent them into a different state of being.  The need to travel south, that had seemed so urgent to Robert, was completely forgotten.

Food was totally neglected.  Water was also forgotten.  Even the grazing horse was ignored.  They both felt the need to do something about their growing hunger pangs but neither wanted to break their spell by surrendering to their mundane human needs.

Only when the cries of their churning stomachs could no longer be ignored did they go through the motions of eating and drinking.  One cut off a hunk of venison and the other placed it on a spit over the fire.

They both really tried to give the meat enough time to let the warmth penetrate all the way through to its center but their hide-covered nest seemed to be calling out to them.

Neither had the willpower or the desire to resist.  They found themselves ripping at the semi-cooked meat with their teeth and gulping down water to clear the raw meat from their throats all so they could return to the privacy of their hide blanket for another night and another day.

When they eventually continued their journey south, it was halfheartedly.  Both were waiting and hoping for the first hint of sunlight.  Even before the light could be seen, Robert stopped the horse.  He said it was because of the clear steam with lots of grass growing around it.  He said it was because the horse needed feeding-up, but Julii knew this was an excuse.

She knew he wanted to return to the wonder of their private world just as much as she did.  She knew he would find an excuse not to make a fire.  She knew he would find a logical reason to go without food until they absolutely had to eat.  She knew all of these things because, when it came to making love, they were no longer functioning as separate entities.

Every decision they made, and action they took, was now influenced by the underlying desire to maintain contact with each other until their bodies built the strength to have more sex.  More sex became the catalyst for Julii and Robert’s first foreseeable pattern of behavior since leaving her tribe.

It was a strange pattern, but a predictable pattern.  After five more nights had passed, the ability to predict at least one act made the idea of future normality a tantalizing possibility for Julii.

Until that first longed for light came, Julii sat silently on the back of the horse holding herself as close to Robert as the saddle would allow.  She no longer let herself wonder, or care, what was going to happen to her in the future, her whole routine was simply waiting for the sun to show itself on the horizon.

If it were left to Julii, the horse would remain permanently saddled, she and Robert would go without food, and traveling at night would be abandoned.  In truth, traveling of any kind would be abandoned; all she wanted to do was lay with her Robert, let him touch her body, enter her body, and forget the world existed.

Of course, the movement of the horse between her legs caused pain.  Initially she thought this a good excuse to stop all traveling, but after thinking it through, she said nothing in case her Robert’s answer to the problem was no more sex.

 _Anyway, it was good pain._   It reminded her of the things they did together during the days, between sleep, as they waited for the sun to fall in the sky.

Riding through rough country to loop around small towns took a lot more time than following the road but Julii didn’t mind.  Time was on her side now; all delays kept her and Robert in this moment.  Then, little by little, Julii sensed a growing change in Robert’s body.  He was becoming tense again.

Julii tried to deny the change; she did a good job of it, until his body became as unforgiving and hard as the horse.  Her desperately suppressed anxieties could no longer be denied when one morning Robert did not stop the horse and find a place to couple with Julii.

This was the time when he always stopped but today was different.  She had been waiting, looking forward to this moment all night as she always did.

Julii used subtle movements of her body and arms in an attempt to draw attention to potential campsites.

The sun was moving well up into the sky but he had not stopped.  Even when a big town came into view, Robert chose to keep the horse moving forward.  _How could they couple in the middle of a town?_

 

 


	11. Atlanta

####  Atlanta

 

She asked Robert to stop but he did not reply.  Julii could see the town growing larger and larger ahead of them.  She was close enough to see people in what she knew must be the thing called a “street”.  There were carriages, she could see them.  There were people inside them and they were being pulled by horses, on wheels with spokes, between stone and wood tipis, just as Robert said they would be.

_Her Robert had been telling the truth after all._

Soon, too soon for Julii, they were clip clopping along the street in among the people, horses and carriages.  _So many people._   More people than Julii had ever imagined, let alone seen.

She looked anxiously around at the bustle.  She looked into the little side streets that branched off of the big street.  She even looked under the wooden platforms that were somehow raised off the ground in front of the big tipis and, much to her relief, she could see no wild pigs and no blue men pulling up bodies.

Julii noticed that the whitish pink people in carriages and walking along the sides of the street were not simply wearing gray or blue.  She had only ever seen white people wearing gray or blue but these men wore black, red, green or gray.  The women wore billowing dresses that were all the color of the rainbow.

 _Will any of these colors offend her Robert like the blue seemed to offend him?_   _Will he hit any of them in the head with his sword?_

One man on the street obviously knew her Robert.  He waved and Robert waved back.  The man then stopped and stared directly at her, so she waved and smiled until she noticed his stare at her was hostile.  It clearly expressed confusion and disapproval.

 _How can someone that Robert knew be disapproving of her?_   _He had never met her._   _He had no idea who she was._   _How could he disapprove of someone he had never even met?_

The man next to the man who knew Robert wore gray like Robert.  He even had a yellow color like Robert.  Julii could tell that he also knew Robert, but he did not wave.  He purposefully turned to walk away, and the man who waved grabbed him by the arm.  Both men argued, then the man in gray tugged his arm free of the man who also knew Robert and ran away.

Julii wondered what kind of behavior this strange dance represented.  _Was it ceremonial?_   _The men in her tribe danced ceremonial dances on important occasions.  Her Robert’s safe return must be an important occasion, so why shouldn’t men in Robert’s tribe dance too?_

More people were stopping in the street.  Many stopped in the middle of whatever it was they were doing to look at Robert.  These people did not wave or seem to recognize him.

 _Could this tribe, village, “town” be so big that not everyone knew everyone else?_   This was a revelation for Julii.  _A town existed that was so big not everyone knew everyone else!_

The people who had stopped what they were doing did not dance, but many drew the attention of other people on the street to what they were looking at.  These other people then also stopped and looked.  First they all looked at Robert, most with pride if not recognition, then every single one of them moved their gaze disapprovingly to Julii.

 _How could all of them disapprove of her without talking to each other?_   _One man may have disliked the way she looked and maybe one or two of the women disapproved of the way she dressed, but they had not spoken to one-another to pass on their feelings of disapproval._   _Could everyone be disapproving of something different?_   _No!_

Julii did not have that many things to disprove of.  In her state of raw discomfort, Julii’s spontaneous question poured directly into Robert’s ear.  “Do white people communicate without words?”

Robert simply swiveled around in his saddle and gave Julii the horrible look that asked if she was mad without the need for words.

For some reason, her Robert seemed to be feeling extreme discomfort.  Coming home should be a wonderful moment, but he was unhappy and his body felt tense and stiff.

Julii was trying to work out why, when he stopped the horse outside a big stone tipi.   _House!_   _She must call it a house._   It was far too vast to even be thought of as a tipi.  Even compared to the other very many, very large houses in this street, this house was huge.

A man and a woman, about the same age as her parents, walked from the huge house to meet them.  Robert dropped to the ground and ran to the woman, calling, “Mother.”

Robert held her and she cried in his arms.  It was a very moving scene and Julii enjoyed her Robert’s obvious excitement and pleasure.  She looked forward to the moment when Robert would help her from the horse and introduce them.  Meeting his mother for the first time was important and she silently rehearsed what she was going to say.

Looking closer, Julii realized that Robert’s mother was a little older than her own mother.  She thought about how hard it was going to be to tell the age of white people, as she patiently waited on the back of the horse for Robert to finish his greetings.

Readying herself for the inevitable first introduction to Robert’s parents, Julii wondered if her hair was in order.  They hadn’t stopped, so she had no chance to wash her face or smooth her hair down with her hands.  Julii self-consciously felt the hair on both sides of her head.  _It was not standing up or matted._   _Good!_

Julii was a little surprised but understood why she was not yet included in the homecoming.  Robert separated himself from hugging his mother and immediately hugged the man who must be his father.

She felt excluded and uncomfortable and exposed up there on the horse, but Robert’s father had tears of joy in his eyes.  She forgave her Robert because his father obviously needed his son’s full attention at that moment.

Then it dawned on Julii that she should be extremely tolerant of this extended emotional process because, until this moment, Robert’s parents must have believed that he was long since dead.  _They must have been feeling so sad._

She must sit quietly and wait for her Robert to choose the correct moment to include her.  _He would know the right time._   It made Julii happy to think of the pleasure Robert’s parents must be feeling at that moment, and then it caused her sadness to think of the sorrow her parents must be feeling for exactly the opposite reason.

Julii forced that negative thought from her mind.  This was a happy occasion.  She was about to meet the parents of the man she loved for the very first time.  _She must make a good impression._

Julii was shocked when Robert’s mother turned to look scornfully up at her.  Julii offered her a warm smile.  This smile had been winning her favors since childhood but it was failing now.

Robert’s mother had the same glare of disapproval as all the strangers along the street.  Robert’s father also turned to look and, there it was again, he had exactly the same expression of disapproval.

Julii looked down at herself.  _Was she covered in something bad?_   She could see nothing nasty on her clothes.  _Had coupling with their son somehow changed her appearance?_   _Could they tell by looking?_   _Did they disapprove?_   _No, that made no sense._

Julii had seen many of her tribe go through the joining ceremony, then coupling; none of them had changed color or shape, so she must also still look the same as she always had.  _What negative thing is it that all these people keep seeing in her?_

Much to Julii’s relief, Robert broke his parent’s disapproving gaze by walking back to the horse to gently lift her down.  Julii was pleased to hear warmth and pride in Robert’s voice as he said: “This is Julii.  Mother.  Father.  Julii saved my life and we are all to be very good to her.”

Julii’s smile beamed until she heard Robert’s father’s reply in an angry and fearful voice: “Have you lost your mind, son?”

Robert’s father was looking up and down the street for something that seemed to frighten him.  Julii wondered if Robert’s father was being literal.  Was he looking anxiously up and down the street for Robert’s lost mind?  She looked, but all she could see were the gathering white people who stared angrily at her.

Robert’s father’s words made no sense but she dare not ask Robert what he meant.  The sting of his belittling expression after her last stupid question still lingered.

Robert’s mother spoke in an urgent whisper.  “For God’s sake, get her off the street!”

Robert’s father said: “Take her around back!”

Then Robert’s mother spoke in a voice that overruled her husband.  “Just get her off the street now!”

Watching Robert’s mother glance up and down the street, Julii realized that she wanted her out of sight of the staring eyes.  _Robert’s mother was embarrassed to be seen with her._   _How can she be embarrassed?_   _Robert’s mother didn’t know anything about her._   _She hadn’t spoken to her, not even a greeting._

Much to her relief, Robert placed his arm lovingly around Julii and escorted her gently and respectfully into the house.  He was proud of her and Julii loved him for it.  She just knew that her Robert was going to get her through this ordeal.  He was going to support her no matter what, and it felt good and safe to be by his side.

As Julii passed through the doorway into the most exquisitely decorated tipi, _no, not tipi, this was a house_ , she became aware of a combination of smells that brought her a little glimpse of familiarity and calm.  Many of the smells were new and strange, but the unmistakable aromas of cooking evoked old, familiar, safe feelings of entering her family’s tipi.

Julii experienced brief feelings of security; a moment of _coming home_.  But all notions of safety were suddenly blown apart when a fat brown woman walked awkwardly down from the sky inside the house.

It was not normal sky.  There was no sun, no blue sky, no white clouds.  It was vast and flat and white, and the thing the fat brown woman walked down was made up of little platforms, one set ahead of the last.  Each of the platforms was covered in a bright red covering.  _No, not each one._   The beautiful vivid covering flowed magnificently from the top to the bottom in one long strip of red.

Julii’s brain searched desperately for any kind of understanding.  She needed a reference point to make sense of what she was seeing.  If she could just find something in her memory, a past experience, anything that could place what she was seeing in context.  She needed to make this whole experience less terrifying.  She searched and searched but the only recreation available to her was a waterfall.  _The fat brown woman was walking down a waterfall but the waterfall was not water, it was blood!_

This thought was simply too confronting and had to be replaced, but what else could it be?  Julii knew that the sky was where dead people go to be with their ancestors in the afterlife.  This fat brown woman was returning from the sky.  _Was she returning from the afterlife?_   _Was she somehow connected with death?_   _Was she a medicine woman?_   _Was she a God?_

Survival instincts told Julii to run for her life, but outside was filled with horrible staring people.  Fighting back terror, she smiled at the fat brown woman in the hope that she would smile back.

The brown people who Julii had helped deliver their baby had smiled back.  _Maybe all brown people smiled back?_   She waited but the hoped-for smile did not come.

The fat brown women simply ignored Julii and melted into Robert’s embrace.  It was clear that Robert and the fat brown woman loved each other very much.  There were hugs and kisses followed by more hugs and kisses.

When the fat brown woman bothered to look directly at Julii, her nasty words came as a terrible shock.  They seemed to harbor more menace than all of the staring white people’s eyes outside.  “Why you wanna go upsetting your momma, Master Robert?  What you bring that there red nigger back home for?”

Julii stood frozen with fear at the base of her notional waterfall of blood cascading down from the afterlife.  She looked from Robert to his father, to his mother, and to the fat brown woman who her Robert called “Nanny”.

She wondered what kind of world she had entered.  _Had her Robert been sent by evil spirits?_   _Had his monstrous task been to lure her back to this dreadful place?_   _Had it all been simply to harm her?_   _What was going to become of her?_

Rendered motionless by an instinctive drive to save herself and the counteracting need to stay close to Robert, Julii stood and watched as two men barged their way into the house.

Dressed in the same gray clothes as Robert, they just walked rudely through the opening in the front of the house, uninvited, right into Robert’s parents home.

Even in her dismayed state, Julii was surprised.  They had not even stopped outside and asked to be allowed in.  Even at this moment of critical danger, a moment when she quite literally believed that she stood between the afterlife and nothing, a ridiculous thought went through her head.  _The people of her tribe would not have been so rude._   _The people of her tribe would have respectfully waited outside another person’s tipi and waited to be invited inside._

A fleeting idea heightened Julii’s state of panic.  _Were these rude gray men part of Robert’s horrible plan?_   _Were they about to take her away?_   _No!_

She could not stand the thought of being taken away from her Robert.  Julii braced herself.  _She would fight!_   _She must resist whatever these men were about to do to her!_

 

 


	12. No assimilation

####  No assimilation

 

Much to Julii’s astonishment, the two rude gray men who had walked uninvited into Robert’s parents house didn’t even pause to look at her.  Not even a glance with that white man’s scorn as they passed.

One of the gray men spoke in a harsh and deadly serious tone to her Robert.  “Captain Robert Calhoun?”

“You know full well who I am, John.”

Julii looked up at her Robert with pride.  She liked the sound of his crisp and strong reply.  He was not afraid.  Even in this moment of mayhem he sounded defiant.  _What had she been thinking?_   _Her Robert was not evil._   _Her Robert would not trick her._   _Her Robert would save her from anything._

The second gray man spoke, and he sounded full of authority.  “Captain Robert Calhoun.  It is my duty to tell you that you are under arrest for leaving the field at Pittsburgh Landing on the morning of April 6th 1862 without permission from your commanding officer.  You are to be court-martialed to answer the charge of desertion at the battle of Shiloh.”

Everything that had just been said was simply a confusion of different noises for Julii.  She could tell that whatever was happening was deadly serious and it involved her Robert, but she could not predict what was going to happen next.  She braced herself for Robert’s reaction, but what actually happened was so strange and inappropriate, even she could feel how odd it was.

Robert’s mother shouted as she glanced frantically between the gray men’s eyes and their moccasins.  “Have you no idea how to behave in polite society?  Do you even consider yourself gentlemen?”

Looking down, Julii noticed the mud and dust on their long black moccasins, _boots_.  They were leaving marks on the wonderful red floor covering with each of their heavy steps.

Even though this was not her father’s tipi, the lack of respect irritated Julii too.  It was so blatantly unthinking and rude.  She empathized with Robert’s mother’s outrage.

The two gray men were taken totally off guard.  They looked down at their feet like naughty children.  Until this moment, neither man had noticed or cared about the marks their boots made.  Suddenly the mud and dust on the floor covering seemed to be the most important thing in their world.

Julii watched the two strong men in gray take hesitant backward steps.  She noticed that one of them, the man Robert had called “John”, was the man dressed in gray who had pulled away from the man on the street who waved at Robert.

Just moments before he had been stiff with bravado and authority, but just a few sharp words from Robert’s mother and he was crushed.  He even stopped moving when he saw the added mess his steps were making.  He and his partner were caught in the horns of a dilemma.  When both men began to walk again, they tiptoed carefully backwards like scolded children until they both reached the bare wood boards just outside the house.

Julii watched each man take turns to move the dusty souls of their tall black moccasin boots back and forth on a smaller floor covering.  Their submissive behavior fascinated her.  _Was this pathetic shuffling movement a sign of subordination?_   _Was Robert’s mother a powerful chief?_

What happened next made it clear that it was Robert’s father who carried the authority of a big chief.  Without raising his voice, he spoke to the two humiliated gray men.  “How dare you come to my home to arrest my son with no prior warning, Lieutenant?  Do you know who I am?”

It took all of the second man in gray’s courage to look Robert’s father in the eye and reply.  “I am sorry, sir.  But my orders are to take your son into custody to await military justice.”

The volume of Robert’s father’s voice rose only slightly, but for Julii, it conveyed the menace of a full volume scream.  “My son will remain here on his own cognizance until your ridiculous court-martial takes place.  I assume a date has been set for this court-martial, Lieutenant?”

The first man in gray, the one called John, seemed to have recovered from Robert’s mother’s attack.  Julii watched his face grow sterner.  With every word spoken between Robert’s father and the man called “Lieutenant”, his anger grew.  He seemed close to bursting as the man called Lieutenant adopted a more respectful tone.  “I understand your position, sir, but please understand mine.  I have orders to arrest your son.  I deeply respect your authority as Mayor of Atlanta, sir, but I have been ordered to arrest your son by General Hardee.”

Julii saw the exact moment the first man in gray gave up the fight for self-control, and his outburst, when it came, surprised everyone but her.  “Thousands of good men died while this coward ran for his pathetic life!”

The second gray man, the one called Lieutenant, took a shocked step away from the shouting man called John before shouting himself.  His tone was a combination of fear, anger, indignation and surprise.  “Hold your tongue, Sergeant!”

The gray man called John did not hold his tongue.  He shouted back: “Everyone in our unit but me and him were killed!  And I never ran in the face of no Yankees!”

Julii was pushed aside as Robert’s father walked toward the opening in the front of his tipi, _house_.  His voice grew with every step.  “Are you calling my son a coward, sir?”

The man called Lieutenant took a fearful step backwards, but the man called Sergeant John held his ground as he shouted:  “I am, sir!”

Robert’s father stopped walking.  For a moment he seemed at a loss for words; the man called Sergeant John’s reply had clearly taken him by surprise.  Even Julii could see that the sergeant man called John was supposed to have been crushed by Robert’s father’s authority.  His own status within the tribe was clearly not high enough to speak to Robert’s father as he had.

Still loud but with diminished authority, Robert’s father spluttered: “Were I a younger man, I would demand satisfaction, sir.”

His tone made Julii sad.  Even she could tell his threat sounded more pathetic than menacing.

As though saving what was left of Robert’s father’s dignity, the embarrassed lieutenant stepped forward, stared directly into the man called Sergeant John’s eyes, and shouted: “Attention!”

Julii watched in amazement as the sergeant man called John’s body became suddenly taller and stiffer.  It looked as though something within the lieutenant had taking control of Sergeant John.  The man called John’s expression seemed angry with his own body for reacting as it had.

The lieutenant was struggling to maintain control of his voice as he shouted, “Goddamn it, Sergeant!  You are not the only man to have lost people at Shiloh!  There are so many families on this very street grieving the loss of loved ones!”

Even with the lieutenant’s face just inches away from his own, the sergeant man called John did not back down.  His voice cracked with deep-felt emotion.  “But not because their yellow-belly commanding office chose to save his own skin and left his men to die!”

The man called Sergeant left an angry pause before shouting the word: “Sir!”

Julii could see the sergeant called John was afraid, but instead of backing down, he recklessly raised his anger to new heights.  He pushed past the man called Lieutenant and started walking menacingly towards her Robert.

The man called Lieutenant screamed at the top of his voice: “You are on a charge, Sergeant.  You are on a charge for insubordination!”

The lieutenant’s threat did not stop the sergeant man called John.  Julii was standing almost in his path, and the look in his eyes and the movement of his body was terrifying.  _Was he going to kill her Robert?_

Deep pain sounded in his voice as he shouted at Robert: “My brother depended on you!  You yeller coward!”

Bolstering herself with every ounce of courage she could muster, Julii moved to stand directly in the sergeant called John’s path.  She believed that she understood enough of what was going on to be able to clear things up.  Looking him in the eye, she spoke with authority.  “My Robert did not run away!  He was badly hurt at your battle of Shiloh.  When I found him he was...”

Incredibly, her words did not even slow the man called John down.  He merely pushed past her as though she were a ghost.  _Was that it?_   _Was she already dead?_   _That would explain an awful lot of the strange goings on._   Julii looked up the waterfall of blood to the bright white sky.  _Was she supposed to go up into the afterlife?_   _Was it all that simple?_

While questioning her state of being, Julii watched as the man called Sergeant John brought out a heavy thing from his trouser pocket.  The heavy thing made a horrible clanking sound.  _Was it a weapon?_   _Was she about to watch her Robert die?_   _Could she do anything to prevent his death?_   _She had to try!_

Julii made a desperate grab for the arm that held the clanking weapon.  She felt the tense muscles moving within Sergeant John’s arm and knew that she could not be a ghost.  _Surely a ghost would be unable to touch a living human being._

Julii pulled against his arm with every ounce of strength she had but, while she may be physically able to touch him, the man called John was made strong by anger.  He simply shrugged her away without even stopping to look who had tried to restrain him.

Julii screamed with frustration and fear for her Robert, but the sergeant man called John did not hit him with the clanking weapon.  There was no blood and Robert did not fall to the floor.  Instead, the sergeant man called John surprised Julii by effortlessly used the clanking thing to bind Robert’s hands behind his back.

Julii watched as Robert’s father grabbed at the clanking thing around Robert’s wrists.  He was shouting: “You dare clamp my son in irons in my house?  Before my wife?”

Frustrated, Robert’s father took a step past the man called Sergeant John towards the man called Lieutenant.  “I do not know the full circumstances, sir, but I do know my son is neither a coward nor a deserter!”

Robert’s father grew redder and redder in the face as his voice rose louder and louder.  “You will order your insubordinate sergeant to un-cuff my son and leave my home!  Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?”

Julii watched Robert’s father turn even redder then, as though something had burst within him.  She watched him clutch at his chest and fall backwards into Robert’s mother’s arms.

Robert’s mother could not support Robert’s father, so both tumbled backwards onto the red floor covering.  Julii was closest to the downed couple but she was too shocked to do anything to help them.  The young man called Lieutenant had to spring back into the house to help.

He held Robert’s mother’s arm and helped her to kneel by her husband’s side.  The mess he made on the red floor covering was terrible but, this time, she paid absolutely no attention to his muddy boots.

Robert’s mother shouted: “Get Doctor Cable!”

For a brief moment, Julii wondered if Robert’s mother was shouting at her.  Robert’s mother had not looked away from Robert’s father, so Julii couldn’t tell who she was shouting at.  She was about to ask for clarification, when the large brown woman called Nanny ran out of the opening into the street moving at a surprisingly-fast pace for such a huge woman.

 

 


	13. Heart attack

####  Heart attack

 

Robert fell to his knees by his father’s side.  Because his arms were fixed behind his back, he could not use his hands to slow his descent - so his knees hit the floor hard.

Julii felt for her Robert.  Where he landed was covered in the blood red floor covering, but that would not have provided much cushioning from the blow of his knees meeting the hard floor beneath.  She walked towards her Robert.  She wanted to comfort him but the angry sergeant called John beat her to him.

Shoving her aside, once again, the sergeant called John lifted Robert to his feet and pushed him towards the opening in the front of the house.

 _Door!_   _It is called a door!_   Even during this moment of complete madness, Julii berated herself.  _It was called a door, not an opening like on a tipi!_   _Do you want these people to think you a fool?_

Julii now berated herself for berating herself.  She was an intelligent woman but her head was spinning.  _And why wouldn’t it be?_   What was happening to her and to her Robert was impossible to comprehend.  Nothing in her sheltered existence had prepared her for the illogical craziness of this white man’s Atlanta.

She was surrounded by confusion and smothered by the illogical actions of others.  She must find a way to bring order to this chaos.

 _Surely the only thing that could possibly matter to these strange angry people is her Robert has survived his terrible wounds._   _He has been nursed back to health from the very brink of death, and that should be cause for celebration, not this anger, abuse and confusion._

Julii alone had been responsible for returning Robert to these people.  She should be thanked for saving their clearly loved son, yet everyone seemed to be worrying about unimportant things like leaving the battle.  _Why did they not understand?_   _Her Robert had no choice in the matter._

Julii was formulating the right words to explain her Robert’s predicament when the fat brown woman called Nanny returned with a man holding a brown hide bag.  The man holding the bag looked like he had been pulled away from butchering a deer because he had blood on the front of his white shirt.

The man with the bag knelt down beside Robert’s father and took charge of the situation by touching Robert’s father’s wrist, then his neck.  Then the man with the hide bag opened Robert’s father’s shirt and placed a tiny shiny bowl over the place where Julii knew his heart would be.

The tiny bowl connected to the man with the hide bag’s ears by magical, soft, flexible, red colored hides.  Everyone stood in complete silence as the man with the hide bag listened to something inside Robert’s father.

She watched the man with the hide bag remove the tiny bowl from Robert’s father’s chest.  Looking around, he spoke in a warm friendly voice of authority.  “Get the Mayor onto the lounge please, Lieutenant.”

Julii did not fully understand what the man with the hide bag was saying, but the man called Lieutenant seemed to.  It occurred to her that she had so many new words to learn.  And the thought of learning more words gave her a tiny, but happy, little boost of energy.

The man called Lieutenant looked at the man called Sergeant John and said: “Sergeant.”

Julii watched the man called Lieutenant and the man called Sergeant John lift Robert’s father and carry him through an internal opening into another part of the house.  Once there, the two men placed Robert’s father on a cloth-covered thing suspended on legs above the red floor covering.

Julii understood that things must have been improving when the man with the hide bag looked at Robert’s mother, and Robert’s mother gave an audible sigh of relief.

At that moment, a tall man in a gray uniform entered with complete authority.  This man had the yellow collar like Robert’s but the decorations on the yellow cloth were far more elaborate.  Three bright gold stars were embroidered within a fancy gold braid surround.  It made him look very important.

The new man took immediate control with his booming voice.  “What in God’s name is going on here, Lieutenant?”

He was suddenly and completely in control of everything.  He was clearly used to being obeyed, and the man called Lieutenant and the man called Sergeant John both snapped upright in that strange ridged way.

Julii had never seen two human beings move in such rapid unison before.  Their eyes stared at something on the upright partition thing that separated one part of the house from the other.

Julii followed the lieutenant and the sergeant called John’s eyes to the wall.  She could see something interesting hanging there; it was surrounded by a wooden thing similar to the wooden frame she stretched deer hide on to scrape and dry.

In the middle of the wooden thing was a face, not a real face, not a person, but the representation of a person’s face.  It was a very beautiful representation of a woman’s face.  It was very pleasing to look at, but Julii wondered why the two men were staring so hard at this particular moment.  The beautiful representation of a woman’s face did not appear in any way relevant to what was going on around them.

“Your orders, General.”  The lieutenant wasn’t shouting exactly but his words were loud and crisp and his eyes never left the representation of the woman’s face.

The last man to enter the house used his tone to maintain his complete authority.  “Exactly!  My orders, man!  And the use of discretion is implicit within those orders!  You do not just walk into the Mayor of Atlanta’s home and arrest his son in front of his mother and father!  Do you understand me, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, General!”

Julii now understood that the man with all the authority was called General.  She could see that the man called General’s disapproving words made the one called Lieutenant very scared.

The man called General looked close into the man called Sergeant John’s eyes and spoke in a loud whisper.  “Get these irons off of the Mayor’s son, Sergeant!”

The man called Lieutenant and the man called Sergeant both panicked as they left their rigid state and tried to remove the heavy clanking thing from Robert’s wrists.  The heavy clanking thing fell from Robert and made a thud on the red floor covering.

“Now, get outside!”

The man called General was shouting.

The two men made a mess of picking up the heavy clanking thing.  They ran out into the street and resumed their strange rigid pose.

The man called General then turned to look at Julii.  She had been unimportant and unnoticed during the extraordinary events and she liked the anonymity, but now she was the focus of the most powerful man in the room’s attention.

The man called General’s eyes seemed to penetrate her body and he, like all of the other people she had seen this day, did not like her.

The General’s probing eyes were followed by Robert’s mother’s eyes and his troubled father’s eyes.  Even the man in the bloody shirt turned to look at Julii, and she felt as though this was not the first time these people had disapproved of her.  It felt as though all of these resentful eyes had condemned her somewhere before in another time and another place.  It made no sense because she could never have seen any of these people before, but something in this scene felt so incredibly familiar and terrifying and important and devastating.

Since meeting her Robert, Julii had experienced many new strange and unknown things but this one felt as though she was reliving a critical event.  _What was happening to her?_   _Was she losing her mind?_

The brief moment of recognition was broken when the general looked away from Julii to smile at Robert.  His words sounded sympathetic.  “You understand how serious these charges are, Captain Calhoun?”

Robert adopted the impossibly rigid stance as he gave his very formal sounding reply.  “Yes, General.  Of course, General.”

The man called General glanced at the two men standing outside the house and said: “Despite their bull in a china shop approach, these men have to bring you in.  You understand why this is important, Captain Calhoun?”

Julii felt proud of Robert as he gave his stoic reply.  “At times of war, examples must be made, General.”

And in that moment, Julii understood that her Robert was clearly a _brave_ among his people.

Julii heard the man called General’s tone change to one of deep respect as he added: “You do understand that my actions are for the good of the Confederacy, don’t you, Robert?”

“I do, General!”

Julii saw Robert’s father try to stand and protect his son but he failed.  Instinct told her to help the suffering man, but fear left her motionless.

Robert’s father spoke through exhausted breaths.  “My son will remain here until the trial.  You have my word as a gentleman, General.”

Robert answered boldly before the General could speak.  “No father.  I must be treated the same as any man in the Confederate army.”

Julii was so proud of her Robert.  After all the terrible things that had just happened, he still sounded strong.  It occurred to her that she had never seen her Robert in a subordinate role before today.  Since their first conversation, Robert had always assumed authority.  He had always considered himself better than anyone he had met but now, as the lieutenant and the sergeant called John took him away, she could see he was a little scared, a little human, a little boy.

In all of this life-threatening confusion, his desperate parting words were not for himself or his parents or his nanny but for her.  She felt pride welling up inside as her Robert shouted over his shoulder: “Take care of Julii!  She saved my life!  We all have an obligation!  A debt of honor!”

Watching her only caring connection with the white man’s world being taken away was terrifying.  Julii tried to follow, but the sergeant called John pushed her to the ground.  All she could do now was watch and wonder what would come next.

 

 


	14. Court martial

####  Court martial

 

Julii had spent the last seven uncomfortable days and nights living in a tiny space called “Nanny’s room”.

It was at the very back of Robert’s parents home and it was dark and dingy.  Nanny deeply resented having her modest living space invaded by a “red nigger Injun”.

Julii understood Nanny’s bitterness.  There was a whole house of empty things called “rooms” that she could have stayed in.  Many of the rooms had things called “beds” and “sofas” and “settees” that would have been comfortable to sleep on, but Robert’s parents insisted she sleep on a thing called a “rug” on the cold wooden floor in Nanny’s little room at the back of the house.

Nanny’s little room did not have any of the brightly colored things she now knew to be called “paintings” on her wall.  Neither did she have the things called “ornaments” on the little “table” or the thing called “carpet” on the floor.  Nanny’s room had something called “floorboards” and they were even harder to sleep on than the compacted mud of Julii’s family’s tipi.

Julii had never minded sleeping on the floor before; she had been sleeping on the floor for the whole of her life. But in this situation, she realized sleeping on the floor was not simply sleep, it was a sign of status.  It stung Julii to know that sleeping on the bare floorboards was an insult directed at her personally.

Robert’s mother and father had not spoken to Julii on any of the days she had been in their house.  In truth, she had not even seen them because she had been confined to Nanny’s room and the room called “kitchen”.  Robert’s parents never ever entered either room.

Being stuck in the room called “kitchen” was not such a bad thing.  It had a small waterhole in the corner called “sink” that brought water forth with just the lifting of a thing called “handle” on the thing called “pump”.

The room called “kitchen” also had an overwhelming supply of food; more food on an average day than Julii had ever seen at a joining celebration or a feast to the sky spirits during the annual festival.  Passing the time with ample food and water without the need for fetching or hunting had been a wonderful novelty, but that novelty had worn well and truly off by the time Robert’s “court martial” got started.

On the morning of the big day, Julii was unceremoniously collected from the rear of Robert’s house by two anonymous gray men who walked her silently to the wooden room that the white people called “courtroom”.

The courtroom had an impossibly high “ceiling”.  It was even higher than the white sky inside the front of Robert’s parents house, but this one was bare wood not white.

It was while looking up at the intricate craftsmanship of the joined timbers above her that Julii realized she was feeling a completely new sensation.  She felt resentment for the people who had the sensitivity to make something so beautiful, so wonderful, while treating her so poorly.

This was a surprising new feeling that caused hurt inside her.  She had never in her life felt such negativity before and it made her feel trapped.  She felt bitter about how she had been treated and that bitterness was changing her.  It was wearing her down.

Julii also felt pain and humiliation.  Like a wounded animal, she just wanted to curl up and lick her wounds for a while, but this place with the high ceiling did not feel safe enough to do so.

Julii felt a charge of energy as Robert entered from a door at the side of the room.  She tried to stand as he was escorted by the same two anonymous gray men who had fetched her earlier.  The man sitting next to her pulled Julii roughly back down to her seat as Robert was taken to a wooden structure where he sat with the anonymous gray men on either side of him.

Robert smiled at her and it felt good to feel his strength, even if it was from across the room.  Moving rapidly to escape the person who held her back, Julii stood again and tried to walk directly to Robert, but one of the anonymous gray men stood up and stopped her.  He held her away from Robert and made her walk backwards to her seat without speaking or touching her Robert.

 _This was unbearable._   _Her Robert was right there in front of her._   _Why was she not allowed to touch her Robert?_

The word “Attention!” was shouted by an unseen man and everyone in the room suddenly stood.

The noise made by scraping chairs and black moccasins, _boots_ , sounded deafening to Julii, but no one else even seemed to notice the din.  Julii even looked around at all the faces, but not one of them seemed shocked by the noise.  Then the noise was repeated as they all sat back down.  Julii was stunned to see that, once again, no one cared about the noise.

“This court martial will come to order.  Lieutenant General William Joseph Hardy presiding.”  This had been said by the same man who had shouted “attention”; Julii could see him now.  He was standing in front of her, dressed in gray, like so many of the men in the room.  Then another, more familiar, voice filled the room with calm authority.

“The proceedings of this court martial will come to order.”

Julii could feel the mood in the room change.  It was the voice of the man called General and he was taking control of things just as he had on the day her Robert was taken away.

He was sitting, looking out at all the people, and he was speaking in his very clear voice.  Julii wondered how he had appeared without her noticing.

Before the awful noise of scraping chairs, the seat had been empty, she was very sure of that. _Had he appeared from thin air?_   _Was he a medicine man?_

The man called General spoke again and filled the room with his magical voice.  “The purpose of this court martial is to determine whether Robert Calhoun did, on April 6th of this year, desert his post during the battle at Pittsburgh Landing, Hardin County Tennessee.  The battle now known as Shiloh.”

Julii believed she heard a sympathetic tone in the man called General’s voice as he said Robert’s full name.  _Did she imagine it?_

She felt so sorry for Robert sitting in his wooden _box_ thing.  It was not really a box, as she had learned the word box from her Robert.  It was more like the holding pen she had built from branches to keep a young deer from running away but far better built and much stronger.

Robert’s holding pen sat between a row of very serious gray men and the man called General.  Like the man called General, the row of gray men had all sorts of fancy decorations around their _collars_.

Theirs were not simply yellow like Robert’s; one of them had a red collar with ornate gold bars, one had a blue collar with bright yellow stars, and one even had a gray collar with three glowing yellow stars.

All of the serious gray men had very large gray hats siting on the table in front of them.  One of the hats had a long fluffy feather stuck in the side; it was from a bird that Julii had never seen, but she knew it must have been a very big bird.

Too afraid to look at the unfriendly gray men, Julii kept her eyes on her Robert.  She saw his sad expression as he listened to the General talking about him.

Her Robert was the center of everyone’s attention and he looked so exposed.  She wanted to go and sit next to him.  She wanted to give him a hug and a kiss.  _Why could she not sit next to him?_   _The two anonymous gray men were sitting next to him._   _Why couldn’t she?_

Julii stood and moved towards her Robert, but the gray man next to her caught her arm and roughly returned her to the hard seat.  She tried to explain: “Robert needs me.”

The man who had pulled her down spoke to Julii in an angry whisper.  “You want to mess up Calhoun’s defense?  Just shut your goddamn mouth and stay sat down!”

The General finished his opening words with: “And we will hear evidence from those who survived the battle and the witness in this courtroom.”

All eyes turned to Julii and she had no idea why; she felt even more exposed.  This added even more to her discomfort and feelings of bitter frustration as the thing called “court martial” got underway.

The day dragged on and Julii understood very little of the proceedings.  From time to time, she watched men in gray walk to the front of the room and sit in another wooden pen near Robert’s pen.

These gray men all placed their left hand, it had to be their left hand, on a strange thing that had white and black leaves pressed between two deer hide-covered flat things.

Each man looked at the strange oblong box thing with great reverence, held up their right hands, and said “I do” when the man who shouted “attention” asked.  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

Each man told a story about the day a battle had taken place.  Each man told the same story but from a different viewpoint.  Each man spoke of her Robert’s violent actions during the battle.  Each man told the court martial how none of them had seen her Robert after a certain point on the day of the battle.

It was after hearing a number of these stories that Julii realized she had the answers to their questions.  She knew what had happened to her Robert after the time none of the men could remember seeing him again.

She alone understood that her Robert must have been attacked during the battle and his horse had taken him away from the field while he was unconscious.  Julii was excited.  _She would save her Robert and they could be together once more._

When it came time for Julii to walk to the little pen near Robert’s little pen, she did it with great confidence.  Julii touched the thing with pressed white leaves with her left hand, held up her right hand, and looked very serious just as she had seen all of the other people called “witness” do.

She stared the man who shouted “attention” confidently in the eye as he asked: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

Julii replied confidently, “I do.”

Settling down in the hard wooden seat with arms, Julii was ready for the first question.  Before it could even be asked, a completely new voice shouted: “How can a godless savage swear to our civilized God?  Can anyone here tell me that?”

Julii turned to see who was shouting.  It was one of the serious looking men with the fancy red collars and, for some reason, he was very angry at her.

She was wondering what could have made him so angry when she heard the man called General raise his voice.  “This is Captain Calhoun’s only defense witness.  Do you mean to deprive him of his deference, Colonel?”

“I do not wish to deny the defendant his witness, sir.  I merely wonder if a savage, such as this, understands the gravity of an oath given on the Holy Bible.”

Julii realized that the serious looking gray man with the red collar was calling her a “savage”.  She did not know what the word meant, but his tone and how it was said made it clear that it was not intended to be respectful.

Much to Julii’s horror, the General nodded his understanding to the gray man with the red collar.  Looking at Julii without sympathy, he asked: “Do you understand what the act of swearing an oath on the Holy Bible means?”

Until now, Julii had sensed the General was sympathetic towards her Robert, but now she was not so sure.  She was afraid for her Robert.  She had been called a “savage”.  She was deeply offended and angry about everything that had happened to her since arriving in Atlanta and, above all, she was exhausted.

She wanted to shout at the man called General and all of these horrible gray men.  She wanted to tell them to leave her Robert alone, but she had to help her Robert, so the reply she gave was measured and showed nothing but respect.  “I understand that the thing you hold so dear is sacred to you.  It is not sacred to me, but telling the truth is.”

Julii saw the respect in Robert’s eyes and she felt proud of herself.  As intimidated as she was, she had used her new words well and it made her feel much stronger.

“You account for yourself well.”  The General sounded impressed as he added, “Where did you learn to speak English?”

Julii smiled and looked at her Robert.  “Robert taught me your words as I helped him heal.”

The nasty gray man called Prosecutor, who was sitting at the table next to the table she had been sitting at, leapt to his feet and shouted: “Objection!”

Julii jumped with surprise.  This horrible, rude man called Prosecutor had been doing something called “cross examine” all day.  He had spoken down to all of the people who had walked to the little pen at the front of the room, and now he had pounced on Julii’s words as though she had insulted the thing called Bible.

He shouted in his ugly booming voice: “Are you trying to tell this court martial that Robert Calhoun taught you such fluent English in the little time since the battle of Shiloh?”

Julii looked at her Robert.  She was afraid of the man called Prosecutor.  Her voice was shaking as she asked: “What is the word _fluent_?”

“Objection!”

Once again Julii jumped in her seat at the violence of the man called Prosecutor’s shout.

The man called General looked at Julii as he barked out the word:  “Sustained!”

Then he added, “The accused must not speak to the defendant during these proceedings!”

The prosecutor spoke through a gloating smile.  “Thank you, General.”

The prosecutor then turned on Julii.  The smile was replaced with a look of disgust.  “Your play-acting aside, I put it to you that you are fluent in English.  Yes, I use the word _fluent_ safe in the knowledge that you understand me completely!  I also put it to you that your proficiency in our language is proof of many years of learning, not mere weeks!”

Julii looked at the man called Prosecutor while silently repeating three new words: “play-acting”, “fluent”, “proficiency”.  They sounded nice in her mind.  She would have to ask Robert what they all meant.

Then she noticed the man called Prosecutor was looking at her with an expectant look on his nasty face.  _Was he waiting for her to say something?_   _Had he asked a question?_

The answer to Julii’s silent query came when he shouted, “Well?  What do you have to say to that?”

Julii looked at the man called General and pointed to her own chest by way of asking if it was her turn to speak.  When the General nodded his head, _yes_ , she looked back at the horrible prosecutor.  “I don’t understand.”

The man called Prosecutor made a big thing of turning to the man called General.  His tone was pleading and overly dramatic.  “General?  Please?”

The man called General leaned towards Julii.  “You understand our language, don’t you?”

Nodding, Julii said “Yes”.

“Then be so kind as to answer the prosecutor’s question.”

As Julii thought through the man called Prosecutor’s words, something dawned on her.  The man called Prosecutor was accusing her of telling untruths, and this made her very angry.

Turning to face the man called Prosecutor, Julii spoke in a confident and defiant tone.  “My first words in your language were learned on the third day after I found Robert by our waterhole.  Robert could not speak for those first three days because he had been hurt in the head and the leg.  The hurt in his head made him sleep.”

“What waterhole do you refer to, may I ask?”  The man called Prosecutor was speaking at Julii with utter disdain, while pacing around the front of the room and smiling at the crowd of white faces.

“Our waterhole.”  Julii sounded confused.  She silently wondered, _What other waterhole could she mean?_   _Anyway, what does her waterhole have to do with Robert’s inability to speak?_

She did not understand what was going on and that felt dangerous, so she berated herself for it.  She told herself she was cleverer than this.  _She was the brightest of her peers!_   She wanted time to explain, time to make herself clear, but the nasty man called Prosecutor snapped another irrelevant question at her.

“You said _our_ waterhole?  Who does the _our_ in that sentence refer to?”

The man called Prosecutor seemed to be closing in on something that Julii could not understand.  It felt like she was being pushed towards a trap that she could not yet see.  He was like a hunter taking the last few steps before striking, but Julii could not understand his tactics or see his quarry.  She answered his question with simple honesty.  “My people.  We share it.”

“Your people?”

The tone of his rising voice told Julii he had struck his killer-blow but, search as she might, she could not understand how.  Once again she employed simple honesty.  “Yes, my people.”

“And who, may I ask, are your people?”

The man called Prosecutor’s words were becoming excited, and she still could not understand why.  _Why did the waterhole mean so much to this horrible man?_   _What does he know about our waterhole?_

This time she answered with two simple words that she knew could do nothing to hurt her Robert.  “My tribe.”

But she must have made a mistake because saying these innocent words excited the man called Prosecutor even more.  He clapped his hands and threw them dramatically into the air.  “This witness should never have been called!”

The man called Prosecutor was shouting in the front of the room.  He had obviously won, but Julii could not understand why.

By way of driving home his victory, he extended his arm and pointed directly at Julii.  “This witness should not be trusted!”

Then after pausing for effect, he shouted: “No!  This witness must not be tolerated in this court martial!”

Nothing about this awful day was making any sense to Julii.  She had been told by Nanny that she was here merely to tell the true story of how she found her Robert.  She was supposed to tell everyone how she had healed him, and how they had found their way to the town of Atlanta; but the horrible man called Prosecutor kept talking about the waterhole, and her tribe, and now he was saying she should not tell her story.

Robert stood up inside his pen and shouted.  “Give her a chance to speak.  For God’s sake, let her tell you the truth.”

“The truth!”

This was the horrible man called Prosecutor again.  Pacing faster up and down across the front of the room, he shouted: “The truth, as you choose to call it, is that there are no tribes east of the Mississippi!”

The man called Prosecutor stopped directly in front of Robert’s little pen and stared at him.  “Or have you conveniently forgotten, Captain Calhoun?  It was your very own ancestor, the great John C Calhoun, who devised the celebrated plan for Indian removal back in 1824?”

Not waiting for an answer, the man called Prosecutor turned to speak triumphantly to the silent people in the room.  They seemed to hang on his every word as he shouted: “We have much to thank your ancestor for, sir.  John C Calhoun made this great country safe for civilized people to live in but, I am quite sure, he did not leave phantom tribes scattered conveniently around the fine state of Tennessee just in-case one of his ancestor needed a place to run to at times of extreme cowardice!  No, sir!  Your ancestor John C Calhoun was loyal, he was a hero, and he just did not do that!”

The people in the room began spontaneously beating their hands together.  Julii looked out at a sea of people all making a terrible din with their hands.  They were smiling.  _Her Robert was suffering and they were smiling!_

The man called General added to the horrible noise by banging a wooden thing onto his table.  Some people in the crowd started shouting: “Guilty!”

Then the man called General joined in the shouting.  “Order!”  “Order in this court martial!”

As the crowed settled back into their hushed silence, the man called General looked over at Robert.  Julii could see real hope in his expression as he asked, “Do you have any other witnesses who can attest to your injuries on the day of the battle, Captain?”

“No, General.  This woman nursed the wounds I sustained at Shiloh.  This woman of immense integrity saved my life, and she is my only witness, sir.”

Robert was proud of Julii.  She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice as he added, “Without Julii’s diligence and care, I would not be standing here before you today.”

The man called General paused and glared at the man called Defense - the man who had pulled Julii back into her seat three times.  The General sounded very disrespectful: “Does the defense have any more witnesses?”

The man called Defense was embarrassed.  He shuffled a few white and black leaves on his table, then looked at the man called General and shook his head _no_.  “There are no more witnesses, General.”

The man called General sounded genuinely sad as he looked at Robert and said, “I am afraid your only witness has been discredited.  I have no choice but to instruct the jury to deliberate the evidence discarding anything said by this squaw.”

Turning to the line of men sitting in gray with fancy collars and the hat with the strange feather, he added: “You may retire to consider your verdict.”

One of the men replied immediately.  “We have no need to retire General.”

It was the rude man with the red collar.  The angry man who had called Julii a godless savage.  “We have a unanimous verdict of guilty, General.”

The General’s tone showed sincere sadness and concern for Robert.  He seemed to be delaying.  “I know that this young officer Robert Calhoun has served bravely, and with distinction, in two battles.  The battle of Big Bethel and the battle of Bull Run.  I know this because both of those battles he fought bravely under my command.  It saddens me greatly to see such a fine young man fall so far from grace.”

Looking out into the room full of people, the man called General spoke with a pleading tone.  “Is there anyone here who saw Captain Calhoun on the day of the battle?  Anyone who can help this man?”

Julii looked out at all of the white-pink faces in the room from her little pen but no one even looked like coming forward.

The man called General sounded resigned.  “It is a terrible thing to punish such a fine young officer, but our code of conduct during times of war leaves me no choice but to sentence Robert Calhoun to death by firing squad.”

The man called General’s wooden thing hitting the table was the most shocking sound Julii had ever heard.  She jumped to her feet like a young deer springing from a trap.  She had to free herself from the little pen.  She had to get to her Robert but the anonymous gray men were already taking him away.

Julii tried to cross the short distance between her and Robert, but malnutrition and her state of panic and rapid movement started to take its toll.  White flashes of light moved rapidly at the side of her vision.  They were the flashes she saw after hitting her head on the tree by the pregnant brown woman in the thicket.

 _Had she hit her head?_   _She had no memory of hitting her head!_

As her subconscious mind fainted, Julii’s conscious mind had still not grasped fully what was happening.  By the time her face hit the hard wooden floorboards, all of her failing mental faculties become fully synchronized in a strange and vivid dream of her and Robert standing on the deck of a ship crossing a great ocean.

 

 


	15. All alone in a hostile world

####  All alone in a hostile world

 

Julii came rushing back from the dream of her and Robert standing on the deck of a ship.  It was so real she could feel the wind in her hair as they crossed a great ocean.  The dream was so vivid; it was more like a memory than a dream.  It felt nice and warm and safe, but somewhere in the dream she heard Robert.  He was shouting: “Mother!  Father!  You must take good care of Julii!  Please!  It is our debt of honor!”

Opening her eyes, Julii saw her Robert being dragged from the court martial room by the two gray men.  _The dream that felt like forever had taken mere seconds, and something seemed strange about what she was seeing._   _She felt neither asleep nor awake._   _She wanted to run to Robert but her body would not respond._

Then it came to her - she was looking up.  Somehow she was lying down.  She was looking along the floorboards stretching out in a long line before her to where Robert struggled for his life.

There were many moccasins passing her eyes.  _No, not moccasins, boots._   Many boots were walking, on the floorboards, past her face.  There were also female boots passing her face.  _Where they called “boots”?_   _Or did women’s moccasins have a different name?_

One of the women stopped in front of Julii.  She felt the soft hem of her long dress touch her cheek as the woman knelt down.  She felt the woman touch her face quite tenderly.  It felt nice to be cared for, and just one simple touch gave her hope until a man’s boots arrived next to the woman’s boots and angrily dragged her away.

After a lot of scraping of chairs and boots crunching on wooden boards, the room fell silent.  Julii’s dazed mind began to clear just enough for her to lift her head from the wooden floor.  As she did so, the last white man left the room.

The thing called “door” slammed shut, and Julii was lying completely alone on an unforgiving floor in a cold empty space.  She had never in her life felt so totally alone.

 _Robert had been stolen from her!_   _Robert had been murdered!_   Just the thought seemed impossible.  Robert was her only reason for being in this building.  Her only reason for being in this place called Atlanta.  _Her only reason for living._

 _What now?_   _Should she stay here on the floor of this building until Robert’s memory died with her body?_   _Should she try to survive?_   _Should she try walking back to her family home?_   _The family home the man called Prosecutor said did not exist?_   This seemed like the only real possibility _but how?_   She could follow the road back, the way Robert had brought her, easily enough, but what dangers lay that way?

 _There was a thing called “bushwhackers” that kills people and steals their possessions while leaving their boots and bodies in the road._   _There was also the terrible place called “Shiloh”._

In the middle of her mental struggle, Julii realized that, to add to her woes, she was incredibly hungry.  Much worse than just being hungry at this moment, she was going to be hungry three times a day every day until she reached her tribe.

In the forest she could hunt, but in this town of Atlanta, no one seemed to hunt.  When people in Atlanta were hungry, they found food in buildings.  _Maybe she could go to the food building and get some food to keep her alive until she could get into the forest to hunt?_

Standing up, Julii felt another storm in her head.  This time a rushing sound accompanied the white flashes passing rapidly at the corner of her eyes.  She bent over the back of a chair until the rushing passed.  Gently she stood, but the silent white lightning flashes returned.  Standing still gave the lightning time to slow then stop.

Things that had never happened to Julii before were now happening at such a fantastic rate she was becoming totally disorientated by them.  Something like instinct told Julii that if she was to survive, she could not stay in this horrible place called “court martial” any longer, but the fear of leaving was overwhelming.

Retracing the steps she had made earlier that morning, Julii walked to the tall heavy doors.  While trying to work out the thing called “handle”, one of the two doors opened.

The brown man in the open doorway looked at Julii with surprise.  His tone was filled with disdain.  “You can’t be in here.”

There it was again - that tone of contempt.  Even the brown people of Atlanta hated her.  _Why did everyone dislike her so?_   _They knew nothing about her._

Julii walked past the brown man and the bright sunlight hit her hard.  She leaned against the wall for fear of falling again.  Looking up, she closed her eyes against the glare of the sun.

She could not look, but its warmth felt familiar and friendly like something she could trust.  It gave her strength and hope.  She was out of that bad white man’s court martial room, and that was a good first step.

Looking down and opening her eyes, Julii saw that she was standing at the edge of the busy street.  The white people walking around her all had that same look of disdain for her.

Those who walked alone simply glared at her as they passed.  Those who walked together stared at her with the look of disdain and spoke to each other about her.  Julii could not hear what they said, because the words were said from the side of their mouths in low secretive tones, but she knew without any doubt they were talking about her.

In a desperate attempt to remove herself from the ongoing hostility, Julii walked along the front of the building called “court martial” until she reached its corner.  At the corner, she ducked into the gap between it and the next building.  It was not a very wide gap, but there were no white people and Julii felt a little less exposed.

She sat down in the small strip of sunshine and instinctively curled up into a defensive ball.  Even moving such a short distance had drained all of her strength.  She knew that moving again was essential for her survival, but she found it so hard to find the courage or the energy to do so.  Julii’s confronted mind was giving up the fight and drifting off to thoughts of better things.

Then it dawned on her: _This must be why the animals she had wounded always sought a place of solitude._   _Animals knew when they were about to die._   _Was she about to die?_

Thinking of the animals she had wounded made her sad, but thinking of herself as a victim of white people made her angry.  Even though the thought was entirely in her mind and she was the only person able to see her weakness, it humiliated her.

She stood up by way of defiantly changing her destiny.  _She did not intend to die at the hands of the cruel white people in this nothing place!_

Forcing all negative thoughts from her mind, Julii focused her anger and used it as fuel to power her legs.  Standing, she walked defiantly along the side of the court martial building until she found a laneway that ran along the back.

It was hard to grasp quite how big the buildings were until she had walked along the side of them and turned to look back.  _They were enormous and as high as old trees._

Looking up and down the laneway in both directions did not help Julii make her next decision.  Both ways looked the same.

Making a choice at random, she set off along the lane towards a row of smaller buildings that sat on the opposite side of the lane.  Julii saw many brown people working there.  Strangely, no white people were working, just brown people.

Thinking about it, Julii realized that there had been a few brown people in the big street but they were only there to serve the white people.  The brown people had been controlling horses that pulled carriages and wagons with white people in them.  The brown people had also been carrying things for the white people or pushing small carriages with white babies in them.

Here at the back of the buildings there were no white people serving the brown people.  _This is what Robert must have been talking about._   _White people own brown people, but brown people do not own white people._   _How does such separation happen?_   _Why do the brown people allow themselves to be owned?_

One pretty brown woman was beating on a floor covering suspended above the ground between two trees.  Clouds of dust billowed up every time she hit it with a stick and she sang as she worked.

The sound of singing was familiar and comforting for Julii because women in her village did the same as they scraped their deer hides.  Not the same song, of course, but a song nonetheless.

Julii stopped walking to watch in wonder as the pretty brown woman hit her floor covering over and over again.  As the clouds of dust drifted away on the light breeze, she approached the pretty brown woman to ask for food, but the pretty brown woman screamed, dropped the stick in panic, and ran into the rear door of a big house.

Julii first instinct was to ask her Robert why the brown woman was afraid of her, then, for the first time, her conscious mind faced the fact that her Robert was really dead.

The tears came with such force they seemed to weaken every part of her body.  Kneeling down for fear of falling, Julii let her head fall to her chest and sobbed in a way she had never sobbed before.

She wanted to give up but that was not in her nature.  _Get up!_   She berated herself.  _Get up or die here in this awful place!_

Lifting her head to look further along the lane, Julii could see a horse drinking at a waterhole and that welcome sight gave her the energy to stand.

She had not taken a drink of water since leaving Robert’s parents kitchen room earlier this morning and she was in desperate need of a drink.

Julii forced herself to take the first step and then another and another.  _That’s right!_   _Keep going!_

The thought of what it was going to take to survive in this place called “Atlanta” overwhelmed her.  _Don’t think of everything at once!_

Julii was angry with herself.  _Do one thing at a time!_   _Right now, in this moment, all you need is water!_   _Focus only on water!_

Arriving at the strange waterhole, Julii realized that it was not a waterhole like the one near her village.  This waterhole was man-made.  It sat above the grounds behind a large building full of horses.

Unlike the rounded edges nature had created around her waterhole, it had sharp corners.  It was made of wood and a dark thing stood high at the end of the waterhole with the shortest bank.

The dark thing looked like a much larger version of the thing Robert’s nanny had used to bring water into the waterhole she called “sink” - the thing in the kitchen room she called “pump”.

Julii lifted the handle on the dark thing and nothing happened.  Julii pushed down the handle on the dark thing, but still nothing happened.

She lifted the handle once again, and a little water came gurgling out of the throat of the dark thing called “pump”.  One more pump on the handle and water gushed out.

She drank from the spout.  The water was cold and clear and wonderful to taste and, for the moment it took to quench her thirst, every other problem seemed to vanish.

Julii was reveling in her achievement, the flavor of the water, her own determination to survive, working out how to make water come out of the dark thing, and the fact that she would survive for another day because of finding water, when she noticed something very odd.

The thing she saw was more than odd, it was shocking.  In a day of shocking observations, this was the most shocking observation.  A brown man was standing with his back to her.  _No, not standing, his wrists were tied to a tree with no branches and his arms were stretched out above his head._

This was peculiar in itself, but the most shocking thing was the brown man’s back was open.  _No, not open, flayed._

Julii was reminded of the many times she had skinned deer after a hunt.  _Had this brown man really been peeled?_   _Did those awful white people eat brown people?_   When the brown man moved, Julii jumped backwards in surprise.  _How could he be so damaged yet still alive?_

The red stripes on his back opened up with his movement and oozed blood.  A cloud of black flies lifted from his skin then settled back onto his wounds.

 _The brown man had not been flayed._   _He had been cut into stripes, but he was still alive._

Julii felt so sorry for the brown man because she knew that those flies were the horrible kind that hurt when they bite.

Without thinking, Julii started walking towards the hanging brown man.  When he moaned, she stopped walking and took a cowardly step backwards.

Bolstering her courage, Julii went back and picked up the shiny thing that hung from the dark thing called “pump”.  Lifting the handle of the thing called “pump”, she filled the small bowl attached to the end of the long shiny thing with water.

The small bowl made carrying water easy and, when she held it up to his mouth, the brown man gulped at the water in desperation.

Julii tried to free the brown man from his heavy chains while fanning the horrible flies away from his torn up back, but an angry white man with a hide-covered front walked from the building full of horses and stopped to look at Julii.  He held heavy-looking wood and metal things in each hand.

She smiled at the man with the hide-covered front.  _He would know how to help the brown man._

She waved him over, but he did not move.  He seemed confused and surprised by what he was seeing.  For some reason, he was growing angry.

He started walking towards Julii.  She wondered if he thought she had done this awful thing to the brown man.  In panic she said in a fearful voice, “I found him like this!”

The man with the hide-covered front shouted, “What the hell you doing with my nigger?”

Julii was completely wrong-footed by the white man’s words; it was not the fact that he was angry with her.  _All white men seemed to be angry with her._   _Could he not see that the brown man was suffering terribly?_   _Surely he could see past his hatred of her to help a suffering human being?_

The angry white man did not seem to understand.  He raised the heavy-looking wood and metal things in his hands.  Walking menacingly towards Julii, he shouted again: “Get away from my nigger you goddamn Injun!”

Julii could see that the white man meant to cause her harm.  _Would he open her flesh like the brown man’s?_

As much a she wanted to help the unfortunate brown man, she had to think about her own safety.  It felt wrong, even cowardly, to do so, but she dropped the metal bowl on the end of the long shiny thing and ran away.

Filled with confusion and panic, Julii ran along the laneway for the distance of a few buildings, then turned to run between the buildings whose fronts faced the busy street.  Making sure the angry white man was not following, she slowed, then walked between the buildings until she reached a place, just short of the busy street, were she felt protected by shadow.

She could see white people walking along the street, but they could not see her and that felt safe.

When the shame of leaving the brown man lessened a little, Julii felt a modest level of pride welling inside her.  She had faced terrible danger, but she now knew where water could be found and, if she returned only at night, she would be able to give the brown man more to drink.

Bolstered by her one small taste of success, Julii set to work on her next task.  She must deal with her gnawing hunger, but food was going to provide a bigger challenge than water.

She found some hope in the thought that she had not found water until she had actually looked for it, so Julii collected all of her courage and took an anxious step out into the busy street.

Keeping her eyes directly ahead and her back tall and proud, Julii walked among the white people looking for something edible to keep her alive.  For just a little while she was able to remain focused on her single task, but the white people’s looks of derision and scorn soon began to wear her down.

Julii could feel her strength draining away with every ugly glance.  She fought against her fears for what seemed like a long time, but such undeserved hatred was soul-destroying.  It seemed to physically exhaust her.

In an attempt to distract herself, Julii counted the wooden boards that made up the front of the building as she passed, but each board seemed to grow wider with every disapproving look.  It was just too much.  Feeling like a coward, she ducked back between the buildings just as soon as she reached the next gap.

Julii told herself that she would rest in the space between the buildings for just a moment, just enough time to recover her strength, but _just enough time_ turned into two full days and two full nights of being excluded.

Other than the nights she moved to pump water for herself and the flayed brown man, Julii spent her time cowering in this sad space being an unwanted outsider.  _A hated subhuman._

Every time her mind accepted the fact that she was going to drift into a hungry, agonizing, pathetic and lonely death in this place, she pushed angrily back on that thought.  At the very least she wanted to decide when and where her death would happen, but the only thing she still had control over was the time of night she fetched water.

Then it hit her.  _If she was going to die, she would do it right now._   _She would take back her power._   _She would die by bringing the flayed brown man more water right now, in this moment, in the wonderfully-powerful sunlight._   _She would let the white man, who was covered in hide, kill her with the heavy wood and metal things he held in his hands._

Julii stood up tall, proud and determined.  Unafraid, she walk between the buildings to the place where the flayed brown man hung from his chains.  Without even taking a drink herself, she filled the shiny bowl on the end of the shiny handle and walked to his side.

Not caring who saw her, she held the bowl of cool, fresh water defiantly to his lips.  When he did not drink, Julii tried to wake him by making gentle contact with a part of his body that was not flayed, but one cold touch told her he was dead.

Julia’s spirit was suddenly crushed.  Her bravado completely gone, she found herself overtaken by the need to double over and vomit onto her grubby moccasins.  Until this moment she would not have believed it possible, but these pathetic heaves of bile weakened her even further.  Even cleaning her lips with the back of her hand took too much effort.

She was totally devastated and diminished by the brown man’s passing.  This felt odd because he had never spoken and she knew nothing about his life, age, marital status, beliefs, or his origins, but his hanging corpse had been her only human contact in Atlanta.

Julii’s pride and determination now completely evaporated and she no longer knew what to do.  Dying at the hands of the man with the hide front no longer seemed like a good idea, so she skulked back to her hiding place between the buildings.

She told herself that it was just for a moment, _just until she got her strength back_ , but Julii knew that she was not telling the truth as she lay down, closed her eyes, and gave up.

Preparing herself for her moment of death, Julii thought of home and her parents and Ringwind.  _This was it._   She settled into a last, long recollection of the brief time with her Robert.  Blissful feelings of surrender washed over her.  Robert was there in her mind kissing her and loving her and touching her.  _It felt so real, but for some reason her Robert was being too rough._

Her Robert had never been rough before and she didn’t like it.  She wanted him to stop pulling at her!  Opening her eyes to end the fantasy, Julii realized what was actually happening to her.  Three teenage boys were pulling her from her safe hiding place.

They were all laughing as they hauled her brutally out into the bright sunshine.  Julii felt herself being stood up and pushed against a hard wall.  She had no idea what was being done to her, but she knew for sure that there was nothing she could do to stop it and it was not going to end well.

The first clod of wet earth hit her in the chest and it really hurt.  The second clod hit her in the face and hurt even more.  She kept her head down and raised her arms to protect herself.  One of the three boys shouted: “Hey!  Now we got two Injuns outside this here cigar store!”

Julii knew white people called her an _Injun_ , but she did not understand the meaning of, “two Injuns”.  She was confused and tired.  She looked for some kind of help, but the white people who walked past did nothing to help her; some of them were even laughing at her predicament.

Julii pleaded with her eyes in the desperate hope that one of these people would be willing to show her some measure of kindness but no one did.

Julii noticed the three young boys were pointing from her to something on the other side of the doorway shouting, “Two Injuns!  Two Injuns!  Two Injuns!”

Julii looked to where the three teenage boys were pointing and saw the most beautiful, tall, brightly-colored wood carving.  She had seen many men in her tribe carve wood but none made anything as beautiful as this.  It was a strong, handsome, dark brown wooden man who wore a full and extremely well-feathered war bonnet.  He was a chief of his tribe.  _Why do the three young boys find such a wonderfully-carved chief so funny?_

Julii looked back to the three boys in time to receive another clod of earth to the face.  Her knees and spirit gave up in the same moment and she fell back in a crumpled heap against the wall of the building.  This was the figurative crossroads in her journey.

Had destiny chosen Julii to fall forward, she would have been trampled under the feet of people, horses, and wooden wheels with spokes and the white people of the Confederacy may well have gone on to win the war with the North.  However, destiny determined Julii was going to fall backwards, which meant she was going to survive, which meant the Confederacy was going to acquire an angry, vengeful genius who would make it her remaining life’s work to destroy them and that is something the south simply did not need at this critical moment in their fledgling existence

What is more, her hatred of their behavior was going to survive, and that meant she was going to punish them.  And that meant they were going to lose.

 

 


	16. Count Anton of Rome

####  Count Anton of Rome

 

The fifty-fifty chance which determined whether Julii fell forward to become one more dead Injun in a “New World” littered with millions of dead Injuns, or fell backwards to become a survivor who changed the world could have been considered luck, but nothing about Julii’s life had ever been a mere act of chance.

She did not know it, but being born who and where she was had been preordained.  Meeting Robert was part of her unavoidable destiny; his arrival and being the inescapable driving force behind leaving home was all part of the plan.  All of her terrible suffering, even falling back against the wooden wall of the building, were simply steps which carried her to the cigar store where the next influential character was destined to enter her journey.

Ignorant of her destiny, Julii lay against the wall and stared up at the friendly-looking man who walked out of the store.  She wondered how he had achieved his incredible size.  No one in her tribe had ever had the surplus of food required to become so fat.  Julii even tried to imagine the number of deer that would have to be eaten to reach this man’s size.

She knew that it was rude to stare, but he was so vast, so unusual.  Incredibly, he had a brown thing sticking out of his mouth that glowed red and made smoke.  He was simply too fascinating; she could not bring herself to look away.

Julii was watching the fat man dab at the sweat on his forehead with a peace of pretty bright red cloth when the most thrilling and amazing thing happened.  The fat man reached down, picked her up, and held her in his arms.  It felt unbelievably exciting to be supported by a white person who did not mean her harm.  When he spoke, his voice sounded kind, concerned and warm.  “Are you unwell, young lady?”

His voice was different to others who spoke Robert’s words, but they were understandable and wonderful to hear.

The three violent boys became angry with the fat man.  Julii feared he may let her go as they shouted: “Get your own Injun, fatso!  This one’s ours!”

A clod of earth hit the timber wall by Julii’s head and she braced her legs readying herself for the moment the fat man let go and ran away.

He did not run.  Moving incredibly fast for such a large man, the stranger with the brown, glowing, smoking thing in his mouth maintained his supportive grip on Julii’s body as he turned and slapped the tallest of the three boys across the side of his head.

The boy hit the street like a deer shot through the heart with an arrow.  He didn’t even try to slow his fall because the blow to the side of his head had nearly knocked him out.

Julii watched as an angry handprint began to glow red across his cheek and ear.  Like a caught fish, he looked out at the air-filled world gasping hopelessly for breath with no understanding of what was happening to him.  The fat man stood braced for what was to come next, but the floundering boy’s cowardly friends did not stay around to help him.

Turning back to Julii, the fat man smiled and gently escorted her towards the building next door.  Looking through the window, Julii saw people sitting in “chairs” at red and white cloth-covered “tables”. They were eating from flat bowls using those shiny things Robert’s nanny called “forks” to lift food to their mouths.

Her mouth watered as the fat man opened the door of the building and the smell of food wafted from inside.  The thought of eating made her feel excited and weak in the same moment.

A man from inside the building almost ran to stand in front of the fat man and said in an angry whisper: “You can’t bring no Injun in here!”

Julii felt more fear and panic rising inside her.  _Was this the end of safety?_   _Surely the fat man must give her up in the face of such opposition._   _As kind as he was, he must need regular food to maintain his great size._   _He did not know her or owe her any loyalty, so he must eat alone._

Julii understood the kind fat man’s dilemma completely.  She braced herself for the next terrible leg of this awful journey, but the fat man did not let her go.  He held her tighter and closer to him.  He was standing by her, and the sound of determination came clearly through his voice.  “At the very least this woman requires a drink of water.”

The man inside the building looked over his shoulder at the people sitting at the tables.  They were all looking at Julii and he was clearly embarrassed about her being there.  Turning back, he pushed on the fat man’s chest and spoke in a controlled voice.  “There’s a trough down the street.”

Julii could feel the fat man becoming more and more tense.  He sounded angry as he looked at the people at the tables and raised his voice.  “You evil people make hatred of your fellow man an art form!   You call yourself Christians but you are heathens!  You should all be ashamed of yourselves!”

Turning to Julii, he added in a calming voice, “Come along my dear girl.  Let me get you somewhere away from these ghouls; somewhere where I can take care of you.”

The fat man’s gentle grip around Julii’s shoulders never wavered as they walked along the street.  Even when many people stopped and looked at him as though he were mad, his resolve never even faltered.  The fat man meant to help Julii, and she had never been more grateful to anyone in her life.

When they reached another very tall building, the fat man escorted her inside.  Another angry man inside this building shouted: “You can’t bring no Injun in here!”

Walking purposefully to the angry man who stood behind a chest-high wooden structure, the fat man produced a folded hide thing from inside his jacket.  As he unfolded it, Julii saw lots of pieces of very flimsy cloth with strange men’s faces depicted on them.

The fat man handed many of the flimsy cloth things to the man at the front of the building who stood behind the chest-high wooden structure.  His angry attitude completely and magically changed; just one look at the flimsy cloth things and he was no longer angry.  In fact, the man was smiling.

Julii wondered if these flimsy cloth things were strong medicine.  _They must benefit the one who possessed them, but how?_   _What possible good could they do_   _No one could hunt game with them or fetch water with them, so what good could they be to the man in the front of the tall building who stood behind the chest-high wooden thing?_

While Julii was lost in her thoughts, the man at the front of the tall building made a few strange hand signals and the fat man escorted her back out of the tall building.  She became concerned when he escorted her along the front of the building and into the tiny gap between the tall building and the building next to it.

The fat man almost filled the entire gap as he walked ahead beckoning for Julii to follow him; it took all of her courage not to run away.  She knew what happened in the alleyways at the back of buildings.

 _Was she about to be flayed like the brown man?_   _Was the fat man going to chain her to the tree with no branches and cut her back into stripes?_

The thought of it was terrifying, but _what else could she do_?  There was nowhere to run.  After days and nights alone, she knew that there was no sanctuary in any direction.  She followed the fat man behind the building determined to accept her fate whatever that may be.

Arriving at the alleyway she knew would be there, Julii stopped walking and braced herself for the worst.  She watched the fat man walk to a doorway set in the back of the tall building.  When he arrived outside the door, the man from the front of the building let him inside.

When beckoned to follow, Julii walked to the open door and accompanied the fat man into a very large room.  Julii felt less threatened when she recognized many of the things in the room.  It was a much bigger version of the room in Robert’s parents house.  It was the room called “kitchen”.

The fat man walked Julii gently to a seat at a table and helped her sit.  From her place in the center of the room she could see all around.  It had the same small waterhole, which Robert’s nanny called “sink”, attached to the wall but this one was wider and deeper.  It also had the thing called “pump”.  There was the thing called “stove” and the things hanging above the stove called “utensils”.  The flat white things called “plates” and “cups” and “glasses” were piled up in an open “cupboard”.

The fat man reached into an open cupboard and removed a glass.  Crossing to the sink, he used the pump to fill the glass with water and carried it over to where Julii sat.

It was the best water Julii had ever tasted.  It wasn’t as clear and fresh as the water from her waterhole, but at this moment it was still the best she had ever tasted.

As she gulped down the water, the fat man looked in a number of other “cupboards”.  In one of the cupboards, the large man found some eggs lined up on a “tray”.  Turning to Julii, he smiled.  “Now then, I think even I can cook these.”

His expression and tone made it clear that something about what he was doing or saying must be funny, but Julii did not understand why.

Giving up on his attempt at humor, the fat man placed the eggs into a pan full of water and placed it on the stove.  Julii tentatively raised her empty glass and said: “More?”

Without turning away from the stove, the fat man pointed to the pump.  “Help yourself, my dear.”

Pausing for a moment, the fat man looked a Julii and asked: “Do you understand English?”

Walking to the sink, Julii pumped.  There was an unmistakable tone of pride in her reply as she said, “Yes, I speak English, thank you for asking.  My Robert taught me your language.”

The fat man still fiddled with the top of the stove as he said, “Oh no.  English is not my language, my dear.”

Confused, Julii watched as the fat man opened what she knew to be called a “box of matches” and struck one to light the wood on the fire under the stovetop.

Once the fire was burning under the pan of eggs, the fat man turned and said something surprising.  “I should explain.  English is not my first language, so forgive me if I do not make myself understood, my dear.  You see, I am Italian.”

Julii did not understand what “Italian” was, but she was pleased to have a new word to concentrate on.  Then she wondered if Italian was a language like English was a language.  The thought of learning a new language was too exciting.

She wanted to ask about Italian, but the fat man was busy cutting the thing called “bread” with a knife and she didn’t want to do anything that would delay him feeding her.

She silently watched him cover the bread in a yellow thing called “butter”.  Her heart sank because she knew that it could not be for her because Robert’s nanny had said: “You ain’t good enough to eat my master’s butter!”

Julii watched him remove the eggs from the bubbling pot with a “spoon” and wondered if he was going to feed her after he fed himself.

He hurt his fingers as he delicately peeled away the hot shell and placed them clumsily onto the two pieces of bread with butter.  Once again he smiled as he spoke.  “Maybe this is too complicated for me after all.”

Julii wondered why the fat man seemed amused again.  _Why had he used the same jovial tone as before?_   Julii understood something must be funny so she smiled out of politeness as he placed the plate of eggs on the table in front of her.

It took a moment for Julii to grasp that the food was meant for her.  _She was being allowed to eat butter after all!_   She was so hungry.  Far too hungry to ask permission, so she lunged at the food.

Julii ate all three eggs and the bread without stopping to use the silver things that the large man had placed on the table.  At the end of her ravenous feasting, Julii realized she had not even thanked the large man for his kindness.

While licking the yellow egg from the plate and her fingers, she thanked her fat savior, just as her Robert had taught her to do.  But now she felt embarrassed and rude because her mouth was full of egg and bread.  She knew that this was wrong because she had been snarled at by Robert’s nanny for “speaking with her no good Injun mouth full”.

She also knew using the silver things was the polite way to eat in the white man’s world; she had seen the men and women using them through the window of the building with the red and white table coverings.  But the need for food had overruled the need for politeness.

In an attempt to seem less like the savage all white people thought she was, Julii spoke in her best English.  “Thank you very much, sir.”

The fat man’s smile beamed as he placed four more eggs into the boiling water.  “You speak very good English, my dear.  In fact, I think your English is better than mine.”

His demeanor told Julii that this was obviously another attempt at humor that she did not understand.  Once again, she smiled to be polite.  Then she wondered if the four eggs boiling in the pot were for him or her.  She was still so hungry.  The first three eggs had stretched her withered stomach, but she needed more food.  She could feel her body screaming for more as her hungry eyes stared at the bubbling pot.

She wanted to tip out the water and eat the eggs now, shell and all, in whatever state of preparation they were in.  She didn’t care if they were hot or cold, warm or runny, she simply needed more food.

As though reading her thoughts, the fat man cut another two slices from the loaf of bread, spread yellow butter on them, and handed them to Julii.  As she wolfed them down, he smiled and nodded.  “These eggs are also for you, my dear girl.  And, if you need more, I will cook them for you.”

This was the first time in so many days that anyone had shown a positive interest in Julii.  The thought of being human once more made her smile for the first time.  She wanted to give this kind fat man something to repay him, but she had nothing but her words so she said: “My name is Julii.”

“Julii?”  The fat man repeated her name.  Once again, he was amused by something as he spoke.  “You pronounce your name Julii?”

Julii nodded, _yes_ , wondering how the sound of her name could amuse or raise a question.  _It was her name._

Seeing her confusion, the fat man smiled.  “Please forgive me, Julii.  I am being rude.”  Holding out his hand, the large man said: “I am Count Anton Livius Drusus.  Please, call me Anton.”

Julii knew that the correct response to a white man’s outstretched right arm was to shake the hand with her own.  She shook Anton’s hand with a firm grip, just as her Robert had taught her to.

There was a look of approval in his eyes.  The same look her Robert gave when she learned things quickly.  Julii noticed it just before Count Anton turned to the stove.  It felt good.

As he removed the eggs from the boiling water, Count Anton said: “Where I am from, your name, Julii, is the name of a famous tribe from Roman history.”

All Julii could do is silently stare hungrily at the eggs and bread as he went on.  “Julius Caesar was the most famous of the tribe called the _Julii_.”

Julii had no way of really understanding anything Anton said, other than the word “tribe”, but she liked being spoken to with kindness and respect.  She also liked the fact that the man called Count Anton spoke of being from a different place.  _A different place may be kinder than this one called “Atlanta”._   _A different place could mean different words and the chance to learn something new._   Julii blurted out a question.  “The place you are from?  Do you speak different words there?”

He nodded his head _yes_ and said, “Si”.

Julii was ecstatic; the word “si” obviously meant _yes_.  It was completely unknown to Julii and ten times better than the word “yes!”

The prospect of learning completely new words was just too exciting to bear.  She could not contain her excitement.  “Teach me all of your words!”

Count Anton laughed while speaking.  “There is simply not enough time to teach you all of them here today, my dear girl.”

Julii’s heart sank.  _He spoke of not having enough time._   _Was Count Anton leaving soon?_   _Was she going to be sent back outside alone?_   _This was terrible!_

Julii was returning to hollow thoughts of a lonely death on the streets of Atlanta when Count Anton’s next words provided a glimmer of hope.  “Do you have the days and weeks required to learn them all, my dear?”

“Si!”  The new word came out of Julii in a gush.  “I have much time if you have the time to teach me.”

Count Anton laughed and said: “Good.”

Then smiling, he served the plate of four peeled eggs on three slices of bread and butter.  This time Julii controlled her ravenous urges.  She forced herself to find the patience required to pick up the silver things called a knife and fork.

Julii fumbled with the cutlery and chewed every mouthful with her mouth closed, just as Robert had taught her to do.  She did not look comfortable or happy, so Count Anton leaned forward and removed the silver things from her hands saying, “There will be time to learn how to use cutlery also.  Now you must eat.”

Relieved, Julii used her hands to finish the eggs and bread as he talked of things like “empires”, “emperors”, “Circus Maximus”, “Colosseum”, “gladiators”, and “Caesars”.

The wonderful list went on and on.  _So many words that needed to be learned, thought about and understood._   It was intoxicating.

 

 


	17. White mans riot

####  White mans riot

 

Resisting the almost overpowering urge to lick the yellow egg yolks off the plate, Julii sat silently in the kitchen room at the rear of the tall building storing all of the wonderful new information being given to her by Count Anton.

 _More and more new words._   The fat man must have spoken for at least two of Robert’s “hours”.  He even had the time to serve a third helping of eggs and bread.  It was while she concentrated on not licking the third plate that Julii heard Count Anton say something that struck her as very strange.

Breaking away from the distraction of the yellow-streaked plate, Julii searched for meaning in the strange thing in his words.  She knew that the strangeness was not in the construction of the words themselves because they were the same English words that Robert had taught her; the strangeness was caused by their meaning.  She asked him to repeat what he had just said.

Count Anton thought for a moment, then dutifully repeated the words.  “He always said that you would be very, very intelligent.”

Julii wondered, _who said she would be “very, very intelligent”?_   These words made no sense, but she was too afraid to ask for clarification because asking meant she did not understand something.  Not understanding something meant that she may not be “very, very intelligent”, which would make what _he_ said an untruth while disappointing the man who was feeding her life-saving eggs.

Julii tied herself up in mental knots as she wracked her brain for an intelligent solution to the conundrum.  _Who always said she was “very, very intelligent”?_   _The only person who could possibly think her intelligent was her Robert._   _Did Count Anton know her Robert?_

She was building the courage to ask this question when the man from the front of the tall building returned to the kitchen room.  His voice sounded frightened and he was totally flustered.  “You gotta get that Injun squaw out of my hotel.  You gotta get her out right now!”

Count Anton stood up and glared at the man from the front of the tall building.  “No, I do not have to get this young lady out of your hotel.  I have paid you very well.  We will leave when the young lady has eaten her fill.”

“You ain’t hearing me, mister.”

Pointing at Julii, the man from the front of the tall building sounded terrified.  “There’s a mob outside looking to lynch your squaw.  Looking to lynch you too, wouldn’t wonder.”

Count Anton did not hesitate.  He immediately knew what to do.  Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out his folded hide thing and made a pile of the flimsy cloth things on the table as he spoke in a voice filled with authority.  “Go and find General Hardee.  Tell him Count Anton needs him.  Tell him exactly what is happening here.”

The man from the front of the tall building looked longingly at the flimsy little pieces of cloth with the men’s heads on them.  He sounded angry and frustrated.  “I ain’t your runner!”

Julii watched Count Anton add more flimsy cloth things to the pile.  The man from the front of the tall building also watched and sounded as though he was in physical pain.  “You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna leave my hotel to a mob.  They’re mad enough to burn the place down.”

“If you do not do what I ask, I will make sure they burn this place down.”

Count Anton moved his face closer to the man from the front of the building and continued in a louder whisper.  “With you and us inside.”

Julii could see that the man from the front of the tall building was afraid of Count Anton.  He said nothing more.  He simply grabbed the pile of cloth things and ran out through the back door.

As the door slammed shut, Count Anton placed his arm around Julii’s shoulder and escorted her gently but firmly from the kitchen room into the center of the building.  There, in a room with “settees” and soft “armchairs”, he stopped walking and waited silently.

Julii held her breath because she did not understand what was happening, and Count Anton’s actions made it clear they were both in terrible danger.  He even crossed to the “window” and pulled the hanging cloth across the “glass”.

Listening in the silence of the room, Julii could hear the ticking sound of the thing called “clock” coming from another room.  When her ears grew used to the silence in-between the ticks, she caught signs of muffled shouting coming from the direction of the front of the tall building.

Count Anton heard it too.  He did not say so, but he held her closer at the very moment she heard the distant noise.  His firm touch felt safe, but he was mopping more and more beads of sweat from his brow with the pretty little red thing.  He was obviously afraid and that made Julii afraid.

They both jumped in surprise at the muffled sound of breaking glass from the front of the tall building.  _Were people coming inside to hurt them?_

Count Anton looked back towards the kitchen room.  He was obviously weighing his options, when the man from the front of the hotel ran through the open kitchen door.  He was still terrified, but even in this moment of extreme danger, he could not forget his brutal, ugly, prejudice.  “What the hell are you doing?  You can’t bring no Injun in this here part of my hotel.”

Julii thought Count Anton was going to hit the man.  She felt his body tense with anger.  She could feel many strong muscles moving under his heavy flesh.  His anger made his many chins move in a way that Julii had never seen human flesh move before.  He was so close to violence.  Count Anton’s fight for self-control came through the tone of his reply.  “Did you do as I asked?”

“What?  Yeah.  General Hardee’s men are out front.”

The man from the front of the tall building pointed towards the kitchen.  “You can take your squaw out through the back.”

Count Anton moved forward until his face was nearly touching the man from the front of the tall building called “hotel”.  The man flinched and looked down at his feet as Count Anton snarled: “We will be leaving this hotel through the front door like human beings, you southern heathen!”

The man from the front of the tall building’s reply sounded surprised, pathetic and hurt.  “What you going at me for?  I’m the guy who let that Injun squaw in my kitchen to eat my food.  I’m the guy who fetched the general.”

Count Anton had clearly had enough.  He grabbed the man by the front of his shirt as he growled directly into his face, “And you are the guy who’s getting out of our way!”

Count Anton simultaneously tightened his grip on Julii, while using his body weight to push the baffled man easily to one side.

Standing tall, Count Anton escorted her proudly towards the front of the tall building.  In the front room, terrified people were gathered behind the chest-high wooden thing nervously watching the rabble jostling outside through the broken front window.

Seeing Count Anton and Julii, they all turned to stare.  The expressions on their faces made it clearer that they now understood and believed the people outside had good reason for rioting outside their hotel.

Count Anton stopped walking and looked at them all.  Striking a match, he lit another of the long brown things.  Puffing smoke, he spoke with a tone of pride in his voice.  “This is a human being in need of help.  Can you cruel people ever see past color?”

Everyone standing in the room looked shocked and outraged.  Their expressions said: _Why was Count Anton blaming them when he was the one so clearly in the wrong?_

Shaking his head in disgust, Count Anton flicked his extinguished match in their direction and escorted Julii out through the front door.  Still holding her firmly, he stopped on the sidewalk where many gray men with the long leafless branches were struggling to hold back the angry mob.

Count Anton stood puffing out smoke while looking at the mob with an air of defiance.  He stood his ground as the mob increased the volume of their abuse.  It was clearly intended to intimidate Count Anton, but Julii could feel the determined movement of his body.  He was having none of it.  His fear had been left inside.

One man in the crowd shouted: “That’s him!  That’s the foreign bastard what beat on my boy!”

Julii looked to see who was shouting.  It was a tall man who held a boy painfully by the ear.  He was the boy who hurled mud at her, and he was being held painfully by the same red ear that count Anton had slapped.

Julii could see that the boy was ashamed and embarrassed.  She wanted to enjoy his pain, but even after all he had done to hurt and humiliate her, she felt sorry for the boy’s obvious suffering.

As General Hardee approached, it became very clear that Count Anton did not feel sorry for the boy.  His words made it even clearer that he felt no sympathy for any of the men in that street.  Looking General Hardee in the eye, he puffed smoke from his long brown thing and said, “If you want to receive your ammunition you need to break some heads, General.”

Pointing to the tall man, Count Anton added, “And you need to start with him!”

Angered by being singled out by the “foreigner”, the tall man shouted the words: “Get em bo...”

General Hardee nodded to one of his gray men, and that man used the thick end of his leafless branch to hit the tall man in the face.

The tall man’s nose exploded into a horrible bloody red mass as his knees gave way and he hit the street like a falling tree.  The grip on his son’s ear still held firm and the tall boy followed his father violently down to the dirt.

As the violence spread from man to man, General Hardee grabbed Count Anton’s arm and looked at Julii.  He spoke in a clear and powerful voice.  “Is all this happening because of that goddamned Injun squaw?”

Count Anton was not intimidated by the general’s obvious authority.  He shook off the general’s grip, puffed more smoke, and looked him in the eye.  “This woman is a human being and you will be well advised to treat her with a good deal more respect in front of me, General!”

Julii could see the general’s surprise.  He was not used to being spoken to in this way.  His next words were arrogant and defiant but tempered with a tiny hint of humility.  “And, if you want to live, you would be well advised to leave that Injun with me while you high-tail it out of Atlanta, sir.”

Count Anton’s temper grew and the volume of his voice increased with each smoky word.  “And, if you want your ammunition, it’s best you keep me and this fine human being alive, General!”

Pointing across the street he added, “Clear a path to my carriage, and do it now!”

The general replied in a very menacing tone.  “You be careful now, sir.  Everywhere she goes this Injun stirs up a mess of trouble.  She has already destroyed the reputation of a very decent man.”

Without waiting for Count Anton to speak again, the general turned to the man called Lieutenant and shouted a rapid series of words.  The man called Lieutenant repeated the general’s words and all of the gray men moved as though by magic.  Working as one man, they cleared the mob from the street using various levels of violence.

Julii could see that some of the gray men liked hurting people while others did not.  The ones who did not act violently were eventually driven to violence by the constant insults and jostling of the mob.

By the time Count Anton had led Julii to the other side of the street, through the terrifying gap between the mob, many men on both sides of the fight were bloody.  Their hatred for her was clear in all of the men’s eyes.  Even the gray men gave her hate-filled glances as her huge savior pulled her through the heaving gap.

At the far side of the street she could see a carriage waiting with a brown man sitting high on top.  Count Anton waved and the brown man waved back.  Realizing that Count Anton had a means of escaping gave Julii a boost.  The chance of survival was exhilarating.  She was about to escape.  She was also about to take her first exciting ride in a carriage.  Everything was changing for the better, when a heavy clod of mud hit her hard in the side of the head.

Time slowed down.  She could sense the mob still fighting violently against the gray men, but in her mind they were moving at half speed.  She was watching from a place that seemed outside herself.  She was no longer in control.  She was frozen in terror.  She could no longer feel the reassuring grip of Count Anton’s arms around her shoulder.

Looking down, she saw the arm still firmly in its place.  Then she noticed her feet.  They were still moving towards the carriage.  Her feet were moving without her permission.  _How can that be?_

Like a passenger in her own body, Julii watched herself cross the remainder of the street.  She watched her legs rise to board the carriage.  Before she could even sit down, she was tossed onto the beautiful studded leather seat as the horses instantly started pulling her away from the angry mob at an unimaginable speed.

Julii saw, but could not feel, Count Anton slapping the back of her hand.  He sounded truly worried.  “Julii!  Are you alright, my dear girl?”

Julii could do nothing but give a halfhearted-but-reassuring smile as her head cleared and her senses slowly returned.  It was while giving this exhausted smile she noticed something very odd.  The carriage had made a turn, and from the open carriage window she could see that the men in the street were still fighting.

Struggling to focus the full power of her unsteady mind, Julii tried to understand the rioter’s motivation.  Something about the violent scene seemed important.  _If she was no longer there, what was their reason to fight?_   _Why did these men of the same tribe keep hurting each other when the reason to fight was removed?_

She realized the conflict must now be entirely driven by the momentum of the violence itself.  One man hit another man because of her but, once that blow is struck, the fight became personal and she was forgotten.  The need for individual revenge had become their single goal.

In this moment, Julii understood that _white men’s violence can be redirected_.  _The need for retaliation could become its own motive._  That lesson, which was going to prove very damaging for the South, was never, ever going to be forgotten.

 

 


	18. The road to Savannah

####  The road to Savannah

 

Atlanta was left far behind and Julii could once again see trees and grass and clear sky and birds.  She was exhausted.  Being hit in the head while crossing the heaving street had taken more out of her than anything she could remember, but she was alive and safe with Count Anton.

She was also riding in a carriage, and she could hardly believe how exciting it felt.  She was traveling at a truly exhilarating, even dangerous, speed, but the feeling of danger only made this journey more exciting.  _This is what it must be like to fly like a bird._

Just a few weeks before she had learned the word “carriage”, and today she was riding in one.  She was so high off the ground and the speed of two galloping horses was intoxicating.  Raw excitement pulsed through every inch of her played-out body, and even from her seat in the carriage, Julii could smell the magnificent galloping horses.

Unlike Robert’s horse, these two gave off a musk that she had never smelled before yet seemed as familiar as the smells in her father’s tipi.  The hide and metal things that connected the horses to the carriage jingled as they rose and fell, and even that sound seemed familiar.  The countryside rushing by the open window was also, somehow, familiar.  Somewhere in a vague and distant memory was a journey made in a vehicle pulled by horses, but Julii knew that had never happened to her.  _This was the fastest she had ever moved in this life._

Riding on the horse with Robert had been exhilarating because of the close contact with him, but even that did not provoke the thrill and excitement of this speeding carriage.  Julii could not believe that such a speed could be maintained.  The horses must have been galloping for at least ten of the time things that her Robert called “minutes”.  She looked to Count Anton for reassurance.  _Had the carriage gone out of control?_   _No._

Count Anton sat calmly on the beautiful hide seat across from her.  He was completely relaxed.  He clearly had total faith in the carriage and the integrity of the spokes within the frantically spinning wheels and the brown man, he called “driver”, who sat atop the carriage expertly controlling the horses.

Confirming Julii’s belief that he was in no way threatened by the incredible speed they were traveling, Count Anton spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.  He sounded so relaxed, as though they were still sitting in the kitchen room at the back of the tall building.  “Tell me how you came to be standing all alone outside a cigar store in that awful city of Atlanta?”

Julii was excited.  _This was a chance to repay his kindness._   _She would teach him her words as a thank you._

As the horses outside slowed to a trot, Julii looked him respectfully in the eyes and used her own words to tell her story.  After each sentence she translated them into English words, but much to her amazement, Count Anton did not want to learn a new language.

He said, “Please be so kind as to use your English words, my dear.”

 _Here was another white man like her Robert._   _How could anyone not want to learn new words?_   Julii was flabbergasted.  _What is wrong with these white people?_

When she spoke again, Julii sounded deeply concerned as she asked, “Does not wanting to learn my words mean that you will not teach me yours?”

Laughing, Count Anton feigned submission.  “I would not dream of denying you such pleasures, my dear.”

Julii felt great relief.  The mere thought of the existence of a completely new language that she could not learn horrified her.  Hiding her concerns, Julii used her English words to tell him everything about her short life and how she had come to be in that hostile place called “Atlanta”.

As she recounted her experiences, Julii noticed that certain words provoked painful memories of her journey with Robert.  She found herself avoiding his name and the word “Shiloh” and the words “dead bodies” and the word “bushwhackers”.

There were quite a number of these nasty thought-provoking words and censoring them left little gaps in her story, but Count Anton was clever.  He understood the need for those gaps.  He understood that she was protecting herself from pain by creating those gaps.  Count Anton even filled some of the gaps with new and less provocative words.  Shiloh became “That place”.  Murderous bushwhackers became “Southern riders who encountered the blue men”.

He also invented many more of these filler words, but he was sensitive enough to leave one permanent gap.  After seeing the terrible emotional turmoil that saying Robert’s name caused Julii, Count Anton never again asked a question that would steer her mind back to the man at the center of everything.

At the end of the sad story, Count Anton looked silently into Julii’s troubled eyes.  His face held an expression of deep sympathy and understanding, and when he spoke his voice was filled with genuine understanding.  “So, our mission is to get you back home to your family, if that can be done.”

“Can it be done?”  Julii was excited by feelings of hope.  She had suppressed all thoughts of going home because she believed it to be totally impossible but now there was hope.

Seeing her excitement, Count Anton sat forward, grasped her hands, and adopted a serious tone.  “I said _if_ it can be done.  I do not know if it can be done.  Since the battle of...  Since the battle at that place, many Yankees now stand between us and your village.”

Then Count Anton sat back and looked out of the window as he added in a thoughtful tone, “And that is extremely unfortunate for you but quite fortunate for me.”

Julii thought about the strangeness of the count’s words and the tone he used to say them.  _Why unfortunate for me but not for him?_   She was sure that there was hidden meaning in these words and she was determined to find it because she really wanted to impress him.  Arriving at what she hoped to be an intelligent conclusion, she spoke in a cautious voice, “You told the man called General to save me if he wanted to receive his ammunition?”

Count Anton turned to look back at Julii.  He smiled.  His expression and nod of the head _yes_ told her that he could tell she was going somewhere interesting with this.  It also told her that he was impressed.  His positive demeanor gave her the added confidence to go on and expand on her thought.  “Many Yankees mean the General will need more of the thing called _ammunition_.”

Another nod of the head _yes_ led Julii to her logical conclusion.  “You must benefit from the General’s need for more ammunition.”

Sitting back in his seat, Count Anton asked in a serious tone, “Please do not think me rude, but I must ask, is your story true?  Have you been speaking English for just a few weeks?  Have you truly lived a sheltered life?”

Then he added with a smile, “You can be honest with me, my dear.  I will understand.”

Julii felt spontaneous tears welling in her eyes.  Her attempt to impress him had turned and bitten her like a rattlesnake.  Now the man who had provided all of her support, all of her security and all hope of any kind of future, doubted her.  The man who held her life in the palm of his hand believed her to be someone capable of telling untruths, and she could no longer find the courage to answer him.

The raw agony on Julii’s face caused Count Anton pain that he could not hide on his own.  “Please forgive me Julii.  I can see that I have hurt you.  I asked my question only because you are a most remarkable woman.  Your accomplishments in such a short time and your remarkable intelligence are beguiling.”

Taking hold of her hands he smiled.  “Can you forgive me, Julii?”

Julii nodded her head _yes_ as a single tear fell slowly down just one of her cheeks.

Count Anton followed that awful tear with his eyes.  His hangdog expression yelled out his insensitive feelings of shame and guilt louder than any words of apology ever could.  When he eventually found more words to say, his tone pleaded for forgiveness.  “Please, allow me to explain.  I am what the Yankees call a blockade runner and, as you so cleverly concluded, many Yankees means these horrible confederates need more ammunition.  They also need more rifles, more cannons, more gun powder and more food to feed the soldiers.”

Julii could see that Count Anton still felt truly guilty for suggesting she may have told an untruth.  It felt cruel to leave him in such a state, so she leaned across the gap between the seats, smiled, lifted his hand, kissed it warmly and held it to her damp cheek.  It was a clear, sincere, and unmistakable act of forgiveness and Count Anton knew that he had been pardoned without reserve.

In an awe-filled voice he repeated the strange words, “He was right.  You are very intelligent.”

Julii kept her eyes fixed on Count Anton’s hand.  _There it was again._   _What did he mean when he said the words, “he was right”?  Who was right?_   _Had she missed something?_

Julii held her nerve long enough to let Count Anton speak first.  He gently touched her hair with his free hand like her father and mother touched her hair.  It made her feel safe as he said: “Until such times as it is possible to return you to your home, past the Yankees and those barbarians in Atlanta you will stay with me in Savannah.  You will be my guest and I will care for you and feed you.  Will you be my guest, Julii?”

Julii believed that there was only one possible answer to such a wonderful question.  “Si.”

“Si” must have been the right answer because Anton laughed out loud and said, “Excellent, my dear girl.  Excellent.”

“Excellent” was another very good new word and this time Julii felt like repeating it out loud.  “Excellent...  Excellent.”

 

 


	19. Why white men kill

####  Why white men kill

 

As with all new things, the once exhilarating carriage ride had soon become unremarkable for Julii.  After many hours of traveling, the excitement of being high up and moving fast were no longer providing waves of pleasure.  The sound of the horses, which had been so loud as they galloped from Atlanta, was no longer noticed.  The exciting countryside rushing past the window had become the same.

She would have liked to use the time to learn more new words, but Count Anton had been rocked off to sleep by the ever-predictable motion of the carriage.  With nothing new to occupy her mind, thoughts of Robert began creeping in and, much to Julii’s horror, these thoughts brought pain rushing in with them.

It was not treatable pain like the pain caused by an injury or a bee sting or a pig’s tusk; this pain ran invisibly all through her head and body.  This pain was everywhere and it had appeared from absolutely nowhere.

Julii did not know it, but for as long as her life was in danger and hunger occupied her mind, all memories of her Robert’s murder had been consigned to a deep hiding place.  Now that her life was no longer threatened and her belly was full, thoughts of her loss were being allowed to come flooding back.

Instinctively, Julii knew that she must do something to block these memories out before they completely consumed, overwhelmed, and swallowed her up.  She told herself to, _think of something new!_   _Think of home!_   But the thoughts of home that came to distract Julii’s troubled mind did not help because of the realization: she had caused exactly the same pain within her dear and lifelong friend Ringwind!  _Could she really have been so callous and cruel?_

Fighting back tears, Julii urgently needed to learn new words.  She desperately needed to get her thoughts away from the terrible agony of losing Robert and hurting Ringwind.  She made the tapping of her foot on Count Anton’s foot appear coincidental, and she kept the _coincidence_ going until he woke up.

Before he had time to think about what caused him to wake, Julii set upon him with the first of her planned quick-fire questions.  “The ammunition you give the general kills Yankees, doesn’t it?”

Much to Julii’s surprise, Count Anton’s reply sounded defensive.  He even looked away as he said, “The ethical questions raised by my work are many and always ongoing, Julii my dear.  It is a topic that has been discussed and argued by philosophers throughout the ages.”

Julii had been expecting the simple answer “yes” to her first question.  She had asked it because she simply wanted to get that perfunctory point established.  Once he had said “yes”, she could go onto ask a series of further questions.  These questions would teach her new words that would distract her mind and make her feel less wretched, but his somber and unnecessarily-extended answer now stood annoyingly in her way like a felled tree across a road.  She had no option but to ask, “Did my question offend you in some way?”

Count Anton looked at Julii’s confused expression and smiled apologetically.  “Please forgive me, Julii.  I do believe my ill unconscious has lead me to answer a question you did not ask.”

“It did?”

Julii was genuinely lost as she heard Count Anton add, “But, please do go on, my dear.  I can only imagine how many questions you need answered.”

This was a good thing for Julii to hear.  Count Anton had given his permission to ask questions.  Still a little confused by his first answer, but seeing a chance to take her thoughts away from Robert, she said: “You must make good ammunition because the man called General was afraid of losing it.”

Count Anton smiled his approval.  “You are half right, my dear.  You see, I do not manufacturer ammunition, but I am by far the general’s largest supplier.”

This was a wonderful development.  _She could not be expected to know about such complex and unusual things._   _There was no risk of being thought a fool._   _If she was to understand the rest of the conversation, she had to ask…_   “What is _manufacturer_?”

Count Anton engaged Julii’s eyes with his own and confirmed her thinking with the wonderful words, “That is a very good question, my dear.”

Then he added: “Manufacturers make things.  There are several different weapons manufacturers, in a place called Europe, who make rifles and mini-balls and gunpowder and cannons.  I purchase those things and sell them to the general.  I am what is called a _middle man_.  Do you see, Julii?”

Made confident by his respectful response, Julii nodded her head _yes_ and asked another question.  “Can the general not purchase directly from those _manufacturers_?”

Count Anton’s face lit up a smile that boosted Julii’s confidence.  His expression was a combination of impressed and proud.  His reply came through vigorous _nods_ of agreement.  “And in no time you have hit the age-old nub directly on the head, my dear.  You are without any shadow of a doubt exactly as he said you would be.”

Without giving Julii time to ask who “he” was, Count Anton smiled again and added, “My family has thrived for nearly two thousand years because we have always understood the need for a competitive edge.  In this particular instance, it is the Yankees who are providing that competitive edge for us.”

Julii had the bit between her teeth now.  New words were pouring in and she was managing to understand their meaning.  “How do the Yankees do that?”

“By strangling the market.”

Julii did not understand the answer, but she did not want to interrupt as Count Anton went on.  “Europe is a place on the other side of the great Atlantic Ocean.  Everything the manufacturers make must be brought here by ships, and the Yankees post war ships outside every Confederate port.”

“Port?”  Julii asked for clarification with confidence.  This was all too exciting.

“In simple terms, a port is a place situated on the coast of a nation where ships load and unload cargo.”

“Are ships big canoes made of wood with tall things that make white and black smoke?”

“They can be.”

Count Anton sounded curious.  “Have you ever seen such a thing?”

“At...  at that place.  On the river.”

“That would be a river boat, but it is much the same as a ship.”

Julii continued without waiting for more clarification because she believed she had enough information to understand what Count Anton was getting at.  “The Yankee war ships stop cargo ships from reaching these ports, but your ships are somehow better at getting past the war ships and that is your competitive edge!”

“You amaze me, my dear.  My blockade runners get past those Yankee war ships because, unlike my competitors, my fleet is very well-funded, custom built, and powered by steam.”

Julii knew what steam was, but she did not understand how it made ships get past the Yankees.  For the moment, it was enough to know that steam was better than whatever the competitors have.  She asked another question.  “And the Yankees do not have your steam?”

“That is almost right, and you are very clever.  The Yankees have a few steam-powered vessels called _ironclads_ , but not enough to completely block my fleet.”

Julii’s absorbent mind and her thirst for distracting knowledge were now running free and out of control.  Her brain could hardly keep up with the questions she just had to ask.  They poured out in a long string of requests. 

“How big are your ships?”

And, “How many ships do you have?”

And, “How many ships are there in the world?”

And, “How much ammunition can your ships carry?”

Count Anton laughed and held up his hands in surrender as he said, “All in good time, my dear.  All in good time.  You will learn the answers to all of these questions, and many more, once we get you settled in Savannah.”

Touching her hands fondly, he added in a warm voice, “The purpose of my trip to Atlanta was to convince General Hardee to increase my share of this most lucrative market.  I believe that somehow meeting you is destined to help me achieve that goal.”

Julii was relieved to hear that she had time and she was needed.  Being needed meant the count had a greater motivation for keeping her alive with food and shelter and water, and this made her overconfident.  Without fully thinking it through, Julii decided to show off her understanding of everything she had been told so far with the words.  “And the general’s gray men and the blue Yankees kill each other with the ammunition you supply because...”

Julii stopped in panic.  She had truly believed that she knew the answer to that question, but she did not know why.  She rummaged through every memory, but she could not find a logical answer.  _Why do they kill each other with the ammunition he supplies?_

The half-finished statement hung in the carriage like a black cloud.  Still fragile and insecure, Julii was afraid she had undone all of the good she had achieved so far.  _Would the count’s belief in her intelligence be shattered?_

Bracing herself, Julii waited for his inevitable disappointment, but when he spoke, Count Anton’s tone was in no way derisive.  It was respectful, even collaborative.  “You have hit upon yet another age-old question, my dear.  Why do people fight?”

Count Anton paused for a moment, and Julii felt the need to fill the silence with something smart.  Remembering the riot seen from the departing carriage window, Julii said, “Men retaliate when they are hurt?”

Count Anton nodded his thoughtful approval.  “Some men fight when they are hurt.  Some say we fight for honor.  Some say we fight for principles.  Some say we fight for political beliefs.  Some even claim to fight for love.”

Then in a reverential tone, he added, “It is a question with a hundred answers but, however men choose to justify it, the simple truth is we fight because it is in our nature to fight.”

Glancing out of the window, Count Anton sounded resigned, even a little sad.  “Men have been fighting and dying for thousands of years and, as my family has known for two thousand of those years, the reason is simply the instinctive behavior in us all.”

“Instinctive behavior.”  Julii repeated his words with confidence because she was sure she understood their meaning.  She had been observing instinctive behavior every day of her life.  She sounded excited as she said, “Instinctive behavior is what makes all of the animals behave as they do?”

Count Anton nodded his head _yes_.  He gestured with his hand and said “Go on.”

“Birds make nests because of the thing you call _instinctive behavior_.  Wolves hunt in packs because that is what your _instinctive behavior_ tells them to do.”

At that moment Count Anton looked like a proud parent, and Julii felt safer than at any time since leaving her ancestral home.

In a tone that proclaimed her an equal, Count Anton added, “All animals behave in logical ways.  For them, killing is a means of keeping fed and alive.  We humans, on the other hand, are driven to kill each other for reasons that make no sense.  Every member of my family has understood how to exploit that basic drive since the time of our founder.”

Feeling confident enough to return to her earlier blunder, Julii asked: “What reason do the Confederates give for fighting the Yankees?”

Count Anton’s thoughtful smile returned, but his tone remained dry.  “Men on the Confederate side will tell you the cause is political.  They will talk for hours about their natural born right to receive independence and own slaves.  On the other hand, men of the Union will tell you it is to retain one nation or to free the slaves.  Both sides will claim that right and good, even God, is on their side, but that is not true.  The true reasons are hidden deep within the instinctive behavior of every man.”

Count Anton had a tone of resignation in his voice and a look of genuine sadness as he said, “Servicing conflict for so long has taught my family a few unavoidable truths about all wars.”

Looking Julii directly in the eyes, he went on, “When wars come to an end, there are always a few calculating men who are richer and more powerful.  The ordinary men who fought and bled will no longer be able to recall the unstoppable forces that drove them to fight.  Only their disfigurements, mental and physical, will remain alongside regret.  Nothing will have been resolved and, when enough time has passed to forget the horrors of that conflict, there will be another, followed by another, and another, and another.”

Looking out at the countryside passing the carriage window, Count Anton added, “Understanding the true cause, and ignoring the hyperbole, my family has been able to remain detached while exploiting this sad inevitability since the time of the Roman Empire.”

Julii silently repeated that wonderful new word “hyperbole”.   She could sense Count Anton’s discomfort and pain, but the need to understand more words and the ways of human complexity drove her to ask: “If it makes you sad, then why do you do it?”

Looking back from the passing countryside, Count Anton gave Julii yet another approving smile.  “The swiftness of your mind is truly remarkable, my dear.”

Pausing, Count Anton looked down at his feet.  “Many years ago I decided to sever my family’s connection with war.  For two years I forbade my organization to supply anything but food stuff to all wars near or far.”

Julii’s smile was warm and innocent.  “And that made you feel less sad?”

Count Anton’s laugh was bitter.  “And that made me feel like a fool.”

Bitter disappointment was clear in his voice.  “Within hours, others had simply filled the void left by my withdrawal.  It was then I learned what my family had always understood - if we do not get rich providing the means for men to kill each other, others always will.”

To show support for her savior, Julii adopted a caring tone as she said, “I will learn how to help you.”

 

 


	20. A brush with madness

####  A brush with madness

 

Entering Savannah in a carriage at night was far less confronting than riding a horse into Atlanta in the middle of the day.  Julii felt less exposed, less vulnerable and less different in the darkness.  She turned from the houses passing the carriage window to see Count Anton’s expression of silent empathy.

It was as though he knew what she was thinking.  As though he also feared the inevitable sunrise.  As though he knew that without the carriage and the darkness to shield her, she would be exposed and unprotected.  As though he knew that daylight would make the people of Savannah just as hostile as the people in Atlanta.

Julii wanted to say something kind and warm to thank Count Anton for his understanding.  The string of positive and grateful words were on the very tip of her tongue when, without warning, the carriage drew to a halt.  A shocking silence came crashing into the carriage with the force of an explosion.

Without movement, the wheels no longer squeaked and bumped as they bounced along the road.  Without movement, the carriage no longer creaked and moaned.  Without movement, the horses no longer clattered and snorted and clopped their hooves.  The shock of such violent nothingness broke the spell that kept Julii safe.

Weakened by lack of food, lack of water, lack of sleep, lack of home, lack of human kindness, and the lack of her Robert, she watched Count Anton open the door of the carriage and climb out.

His departure and her thoughts of Robert seemed to suck all feelings of security out of the carriage with him.  As he turned to look back, he seemed impossibly far away.  From what sounded like a great distance, Julii heard him say, “Follow me.”

Julii froze.  Her savior was outside looking in.  He was no longer a part of her safe place.  Fighting panic, Julii looked past Count Anton.  Seeing the place he wanted her to go to may provide some comfort, but the sun was at least an hour from rising and everything beyond him was in pitch-darkness.

She wanted to obey his wish and leave the carriage, but the carriage represented safety.  Leaving the carriage meant uncertainty.  She had only known Count Anton for part of one day and most of one night.  In the carriage she trusted him completely, but outside the carriage, in a strange city, she no longer knew what to think.

Count Anton looked in at Julii.  He appeared confused.  He spoke in a warm, supportive tone.  “Come along, my dear.”

He pointed into the darkness behind him.  “This is the house.  You will be safe here.”

These gentle words made Julii feel a little safer until her terrified and suspicious imagination twisted their meaning.  _It was the voice a man would use to lure someone into danger!_

Her suspicions must have been written across her face because Count Anton’s face changed and his pained expression caused Julii deep hurt.  She hated herself for distrusting her savior.  She ordered her body to move, but fear held her to the seat as though she were tied down with straps.  She felt the rising panic of a cornered animal building inside her.  She was trapped.  Her heart was pounding.

Trying to calm Julii, Count Anton smiled and spoke in a warm voice.  “Please calm yourself, my dear girl.”

Then reversing his lumbering routine, he climbed back into the carriage.  It was not easy for such a large man, and he sounded a little out of breath as he added, “It is just a few steps to my front door and no one will see you.”

The guilt caused by making this fine man exert himself made Julii feel terrible.  She wanted to comfort him, but fear was clinging on and would not let go.  Julii’s mind needed to run and hide.  She could no longer face whatever lay ahead, so the connection between body and mind simply snapped.

In her imagination, Julii was suddenly standing on the deck of a large wooden ship, arm-in-arm with her Robert.  A great white billowing cloth hung above them on a tall stick.  The ship moved under her feet and the movement felt familiar and safe.  The wind blew through her hair and she felt free.  This is where she needed to be.  This is where she had been loved.  This is the life she had been at her happiest.

Looking out across the waves, Julii’s mind was a mere moment from total insanity when she heard her name come drifting across the great ocean.  “Julii?  Julii, are you all right?  Julii!”

 _How could that be?_   She looked out across the waves.  _There was nothing in sight for as far as the eye could see._   _Who could be calling her?_   She had no choice but to concentrate harder.  _She had to look and see who was calling her name._

Julii’s blank eyes began to focus.  Count Anton’s face was directly in front of her on the deck of the ship.  He was slapping the back of her hand like someone trying to bring back a person from unconsciousness.  His voice showed deep concern.  “Julii!  Julii!”

From her safe place on the gently rolling deck, Julii could feel Count Anton pulling her.  He wanted her to follow him, but that required great effort.  Remaining adrift, within the safe memories of her recurring dream, required nothing but letting go.

Then Julii felt the ship lurch.  She looked for movement among the waves but the great ocean was no rougher.  _How could that be?_   She looked to her Robert for an answer, but he was no longer standing there.  Julii found her head moving violently back and forth, then the ship was gone and the ocean was gone.

Forced to return from her brush with fear-driven madness, she realized that Count Anton was shaking her.  She was staring directly into his eyes.  Hot tears were streaming down her face and Julii understood her mind had gone as far as it is possible to go without breaking.  Just one mental step further and there could have been no return.  She heard herself say “Yes”.

Julii wondered why she had said, “yes”, until memory replayed Count Anton’s concerned question: “Are you all right?”

Holding Julii’s face between his hands, Count Anton looked deeply into her eyes and said: “Come with me, Julii.  I will keep you safe.  You have my word.”

Made ashamed by her pathetic display of weakness, Julii gathered all of her courage and forced herself to make a decision.  _From this moment on she would be as brave as her savior!_   _Count Anton was incredible and she should be incredible too!_   _She must face life and death with courage!_   _She would never again be helpless or made useless by fear!_   _She would devote herself to him because he had saved her life and her mind!_

Stepping down from the carriage, Count Anton turned and held out a hand for Julii to take.  Holding her head high and her jaw pushed forward in defiance and determination, she followed him into the unknown darkness.  After only two steps, she bent over and threw up onto the wooden sidewalk.

Count Anton had not told Julii an untruth.  His front door was a few short steps from the carriage.  Even in the darkness it looked very large and very red and, when he knocked on it, a big brown man opened it holding a candle.

The big brown man was extremely happy to see Count Anton and, unlike Robert’s horrible nanny, he looked at Julii with a welcoming smile.  There was also concern and sympathy in his expression.  Looking down at herself, Julii understood why.

She was a mess.  The brown stains from hurled clods of earth were clear to see in the light cast from inside the house.  Wet and dry vomit clung to her once beautiful hide dress, and she knew her face and hair must be in the same awful condition.

Julii looked back at the brown man and smiled apologetically.  He returned her smile and beckoned her warmly inside.  After welcoming them properly into the house, the brown man called out some unfamiliar words that sounded like “Samantha!” and “Tilly!  Fetch a bucket of water!”

Within a few moments, Julii’s world became a whirlwind of action as two brown women, wearing long white dresses and holding burning candles, walked towards her.  One was a pretty young girl and the other a motherly looking woman who handed a full bucket of water to the brown man.

Both women seemed to know exactly what they were doing as they escorted Julii up the little platforms called “staircase”.  Julii was embarrassed to hear the splashing noise behind her as she climbed.  She knew it must be the sound of the brown man and Count Anton cleaning up her vomit.

Overcoming her embarrassment, Julii centered her mind on the job at hand.  _Stairs had to be climbed._   _Come on now!_   _This was going to be complicated._   _Focus!_

She was extremely surprised by how easy it was to climb stairs as she walked ahead of the young brown woman and behind the older brown woman.  She had assumed that it must be difficult because on the day her Robert was taken away, his mother had said, “You will never be able to climb these stairs!”

Julii wondered what Robert’s mother had been getting at.  _This is simple._   The covering on these stairs was blue not red, but in every other way they were the same.  Julii looked at the brown woman climbing ahead of her.  She was also walking easily upwards to the sky called “ceiling”.  _Robert’s mother was wrong._   _Climbing stairs was something she was well able to do._

At the top of the stairs, Julii was shown into an ornate room with a very large “bed” in it.  She knew that the thing in the room was called a “bed” because Nanny had pointed to a similar looking thing in her room and said, “You cans’t never sleep in no bed.  The likes of you gots to sleep on the floor.”

Nanny’s bed had not been as grand as this bed.  Nanny’s bed was not as big.  Nanny’s bed did not have the wooden sticks at each corner, and neither did Nanny’s bed have the cloth stretched out above the sticks.  This big bed looked so comfortable and soft and warm and inviting, it made Julii realize how tired she was.

Fully aware of how rude she was being, Julii could not find the strength to even introduce herself to the brown ladies.  Unable to keep going any longer, she lay down on the floor at the foot of the bed to go to sleep.

The two brown women giggled.  Julii opened her eyes to see what was funny and was horrified to see they were looking directly at her.  Fear stirred within her again, but the sight of something wonderful came to hold that fear at bay.

The two brown ladies were not laughing to humiliate her.  They were smiling warmly and there was none of the scorn of the people in Atlanta.  They were both sympathetic and warm and clearly meant to include Julii in the joke, even though she did not know what the joke was.

Julii smiled back at the kind brown ladies as Count Anton, the carriage driver, and the brown man from the front door entered holding shiny pails of steaming water.

They also looked at Julii and laughed but, like the brown ladies, not in a nasty way.  She was relieved to find that here in the place called Savannah, people’s laughter caused her no pain.

Count Anton lowered his heavy pails to the floor, walked to Julii, and gently helped her to her feet.  “When you sleep in my house it will be in your bed, my dear.”

Julii looked at the bed.  _Had Count Anton said it was hers?_   _Was she going to be able to sleep in a bed after all?  Once again, it seemed the negative information she received in Atlanta was proving completely wrong._

Count Anton pointed to a shiny thing that Julii now knew to be called a “trough” and said, “But before you go to bed, you will have a bath to help you sleep.”

She wanted to tell him how exhausted she was.  She wanted to explain that, whatever a “bath” was, help is not something she needed when it came to falling asleep, but he and the brown men had gone to so much trouble.

Fighting to stay awake, Julii watched the men empty their heavy pails into the trough.  _Why had they gone to such trouble?_   _Was she expected to drink all of that water to help her sleep?_   _That would be impossible, and these nice people were going to think her rude._

Before she had time to do or say anything, the men all left the room with their empty shiny pails.  Almost before the door had closed, the brown ladies were taking off Julii’s dirty hide dress.

Too tired to even protest, she wondered what was going to happen to her.  The brown girl and brown lady were gently pushing and guiding her into the water.  _What are they doing?_   Julii was so afraid, yet too exhausted to fight, protest or even speak.

The water felt warm and soft and good.  Julii melted into the trough.  It felt so wonderful and she closed her eyes.  Julii did not understand what the brown girl and brown women were doing to her but, whatever it was, their touches felt gentle and nice.

Opening her eyes, she saw one of the brown lady’s rubbing her with a cloth and the other rubbing her with a sweet-smelling red stone.  _No, not a stone._   _It was hard but also soft._   _How can something be hard and soft?_   _How can a stone make bubbles?_

Julii could feel herself becoming clean.  In each of the places the brown women rubbed, she could feel her body lose days and days of traveling and Atlanta grime and it felt wonderful.  The brown women even wet her hair and rubbed something into it.  Their fingers moving on her scalp also felt magnificent.  Julii feared falling to sleep and drowning.  _Would the brown women save her?_   _Did she care?_   More lovely warm water cascaded over her head and woke her a little.  _This was even more wonderful._

When it all came to an end, the brown women made Julii stand.  She even felt a little disappointed to leave the warmth of the water until a new sensation of pleasure came over her.  One of the brown women was rubbing her body with a large soft, almost fluffy, blanket, while the other rubbed at her hair with something similar.

Julii felt cleaner than she had ever been in her life.  Her body was red and smooth and her hair smelled exactly like the soft, hard red stone.

Even standing up, and with all these exciting new experiences, Julii’s eyes began to close on their own.  She could no longer fight the overwhelming need for sleep.

The brown women obviously understood her exhaustion because the young brown woman held her upright while the older brown woman lifted her arms above her head.  Julii felt something soft and comfortable move from her raised arms down to her feet.

While being walked in the direction of the bed, Julii took a last peak down at herself.  She was covered with a beautiful soft white dress that concealed everything from her neck to the floor.  That was the last thing she remembered because, still bruised by her brush with insanity, Julii’s mind urgently needed to return to the comfort of the dream of her and Robert standing on the deck of a ship crossing a great ocean.

 

 


	21. Awakening

####  Awakening

 

 _Panic!_   _Total panic!_   Julii was blind; her vision shrouded by a complete black darkness.

Julii fought against the restraints that held her body flat.  She struggled to free her arms.  If she could just lift a hand in front of her eyes, any sign of movement would tell her she had not gone blind.  But only her head was free to move uselessly from side to side.

 _Had this been Count Anton’s plan from the beginning?_   _Feeding her eggs?_   _Saving her from the mob?_   _His kindness._   _Had she been lured into this dark place?_   _What did he plan to do to her?_   _Is this where her life would end?_   _Did she care?_   _Did she want to live without Robert?_   _Yes!_   With all of her heart she wanted to live.  Since overcoming her pathetic weakness in the carriage, she wanted to live.

Driven by anger and the will to survive, Julii’s body flooded with a burst of energy.  Using every ounce of strength, she writhed in the darkness until her horrible bindings gave way.  _At least she was free of the bed._   _Now she must escape!_

Standing in a measure of blackness never experienced before was disorienting.  She could hear something in the distance, something familiar.  _It was the muffled clip clop of horses on the street._

She moved slowly and carefully, hands outstretched, towards the noise.  After what seemed like a very long time in the dark, her fingers hit something soft and she rapidly withdrew her hands.  _Was it a spider’s web?_   _No!_   _It was too strong to be a web._

Reaching cautiously out again, she realized the soft thing hung down from above.  After prodding at the soft thing a few times, Julii built the confidence to pull gently at the soft thing until it came apart in her hands.  Overpowering light suddenly hit her eyes like a punch.

Temporarily blinded by the glare, Julii heard the sound of the door opening behind her.  Turning to face the door, she heard someone walk into the room.  _Did that person mean to tie her down again?_

Julii walked backward into the soft thing.  The soft thing parted and closed gently across her face.  One more backward step and she was halted by something hard.  Trapped and blind she waited for the worst, but what she heard sounded completely nonthreatening.

“Why’s Miss Julii hiding behind them curtains?”

Julii recognized the warm friendly tone of the younger brown woman who cleaned her with the soft, hard sweet-smelling rock.

Confused by the violence of her entrapment and the apparent warmth of the young brown lady’s tone, she waited to be dragged violently from her hiding place but nothing happened.

Recovering her sight, Julii saw movement at the base of the soft hanging things.  The brown woman must be walking towards her.  She braced herself for the worst.

The soft hanging thing split in the middle, the tops making a scraping noise as they were pulled apart.  Julii was ready to fight, but the younger brown woman was smiling.  Behind her the older brown woman was also smiling.  They clearly meant her no harm.  _If they did not mean to harm her, why had they tied her down?_

Looking past the brown women, in the light from the exposed window, Julii could see the thing that had held her to the bed.  Walking over to the bed, Julii felt embarrassed and ashamed.  She had been restrained by nothing more than the tightly tucked bed coverings.

She bent down and pulled at the covering.  From this angle they came free with very little effort.  _She had never been in any danger._

It took a moment to build the courage needed to face the kind brown women.  _Did they know of her mistrust?_   _Were they angry?_

Unable to delay facing the brown women any longer, Julii turned.  They were both smiling warm, friendly, caring smiles that grew wider when Julii smiled back.  The sight of such bright white teeth framed by healthy brown lips felt wonderful and safe.  Even as they walked towards her, Julii felt no fear.

The older of the two brown ladies spoke first.  “I’m Samantha, Miss Julii.  And this here is Tilly.”

Julii smiled and remembered something she learned by the banks of her river; a series of words that amused her.  Words she had never had occasion to use before but seemed appropriate at this moment.  “How do you do?”

The brown ladies chuckled and held the sides of their skirts.  They bent their legs a little and dipped their heads as they both said: “And how do you do?”

Then a happy conversation began as Samantha gently lifted Julii’s arms and Tilly lifted the white dress from her body.

Tilly kept Julii standing in this naked and exposed position until Samantha covered her with her hide dress.  The hide dress felt soft.  It looked and smelled so wonderfully clean.  Lowering Julii’s arms, Tilly knelt down.  Julii felt her soft moccasins slide gently onto her feet.  They were also clean and soft.

Samantha looked at Julii with warmth and a hint of maternal pride as she said: “You come downstairs now, Miss Julii.”

And unlike Robert’s nanny, this brown woman’s tone was polite and caring.  Tilly also sounded kind and respectful as she stood back up and said, “Master Anton’s been waiting for you for a long time.  You just slept and slept.  We thought you was never gonna wake up.”

Samantha smiled as she guided Julii towards the door.  “Master Anton said when midday come we gotta wake up the madam.”

Julii was surprised.  She knew that midday was when the sun hung directly above because her Robert had taught her that.  She had never before in her life slept past dawn.  Then it hit her.  _That was no longer true._   _Since meeting her Robert, she had stayed awake all night and slept all day._   _Her Robert had literally turned her life upside down._

The hand on Julii’s elbow guided her gently from the room to the top of the stairs.  _Walking down stairs was even easier than walking up._   Julii could not work out what Robert’s mother had been talking about.  She wondered if it was easy for her because she was particularly good at climbing stairs, but Tilly and Samantha had both gone up, and now down, just as easily.  _This was a real mystery._

At the bottom of the stairs, Julii saw the inside of the big red door; the door that had opened to let her into Count Anton’s sanctuary just as she had thrown up.  _Was she being sent back through it?_   _Was she being sent outside in daylight?_

There was another door at the bottom of the stairs.  It was black.  Julii was relieved to see it opened by Samantha, and even more relieved to be led through it by Tilly.

Inside the room, Count Anton sat at a large polished wooden table surrounded by many fancy chairs.  He was staring at a large, flimsy white and black cloth thing as though it had some kind of meaning.

Seeing Julii, he folded the white and black thing in half, then in half again.  As he placed it on the table, Julii noticed General Hardee on the front of the white and black thing.  It could not be General Hardee though because it was flat and had no color, just like the men’s faces on the flimsy cloth things Count Anton gave the man in Atlanta.  _How could General Hardee be on the front of the white and black thing?_

As Samantha left the room and closed the black door behind her, Count Anton stood and gestured for Julii to join him at the table.   She walked confidently across the polished wood floor to the chair Count Anton held out for her.

Because of the table, Julii assumed that this must be the count’s “kitchen room”.  While sitting, Julii looked around for the “sink” and the “pump” and the “stove” and the “cupboards” and the hanging “utensils”, but those familiar things were not in this kitchen room.

There was a very long, very highly-polished wooden cupboard thing standing on ornate legs with many shiny rounded things on top of it, but there were absolutely none of the “kitchen room” things.  Julii looked closer at the shiny round things.  They had small fires burning beneath them.  _How incredible it was to see fire burning on top of a wooden surface yet completely under control._

She knew these things that burn were called “stoves”, but not stoves like the ones in Robert’s mother’s kitchen room or the tall hotel building’s kitchen room.

Turning to Count Anton, Julii spoke softly.  “This is not a kitchen room?”

It was a statement but also a question, and Count Anton smiled.  It was the smile he gave when Julii said something that impressed him.  She liked how that smile made her feel.

When he gave his reply, his words also made her feel happy and confident and intelligent.  “You are a truly remarkable woman, Julii.  Your abilities, when it comes to learning and assimilation, are more extraordinary than I have ever seen.”

Count Anton walked to open the door as he spoke over his shoulder.  “Today I intend to thoroughly test those abilities.”

Looking out of the door, he said in a respectful tone, “May we have the...”

Stopping in mid-sentence, he smiled as Tilly, Samantha and the brown man who had opened the red door entered carrying large flat shiny things laden with bowls.  The bowls were laid out on the table in front of Julii.  It was more food than she had ever seen at one time; it was also more different types of food than she had ever seen.  Now she understood how it was possible to be as big as Count Anton.

Julii looked sheepishly up at Count Anton.  She felt ungrateful as she spoke in a respectful voice, “I do not think I will be able to eat all of this food.”

Count Anton laughed as he took up position behind Julii.  His voice was warm and friendly.  “Do not worry, my dear.  This food will all be eaten, but now I want you to experience as many flavors as possible.”

Reaching his arms around, he took hold of her hands.  With one of his hands he guided her hand to a shiny thing and said, “Knife”.

Julii repeated the word.  “Knife.”

Count Anton guided Julii’s other hand and said, “Fork”.

Julii repeated.  “Fork.”

Count Anton said, “Now take the fork and steady the meat while you cut it with the knife.”

Julii cut the strip of meat as Count Anton added, “Now use the fork to place the small pieces of meat into your mouth.”

Using the fork, Julii did what she was told and placed a bite-size piece into her mouth.  Count Anton smiled and pointed to Julii’s plate.  “Did you enjoy the bacon?”

Julii realized that the delicious thing she was chewing on must be called “bacon”.  She wanted to reply, but memories of being chastised by Robert’s nanny prevented her from speaking with her mouth full.  She nodded her head _yes_ instead.

Pointing at everything in turn, Count Anton went on.  “We have fruit.  That is an orange and that is juice made from oranges.  That is a grapefruit.  You pour a little of this sugar on that.  These are strawberries, apples, grapes and bananas.  We also have bread, butter and jam.  You eat those later.”

Walking to a round silver thing with fire underneath, he lifted each lid in turn and added, “These are tomatoes, those are mushrooms, this is beef steak, those are called sausages, these are kidneys, bacon you already know, the eggs are poached, fried, scrambled and, of course, boiled.”

Returning to his seat, Count Anton smiled.  “Please take your time and try everything, my dear.  Today we will find out what is and is not to your liking.”

As Count Anton went back to studying the flimsy white and black thing, Julii did as she was told and tried a little of everything.  She liked almost everything, even the additional things that arrived after Count Anton’s explanation.  One was called “cheese” and another “ham” and yet another “porridge”.

When she added “sugar” to the thing called “grapefruit”, Julii could not believe how wonderful it made the slightly bitter yellow fruit taste.  As she enjoyed that wonderful new flavor, Count Anton spoke about a series of seemingly disjointed things for, what seemed to Julii, no apparent reason.

While still looking at his big white and black thing that had General Hardee’s face on the front, he said, “General Hardee has been placed in charge of Georgia’s defenses.”

Then he said, “President Jefferson Davies was visiting the troops at the front.”

A few moments later he added, “A minor skirmish had taken place in Virginia.”

None of the things he said were making a great deal of sense to Julii, and she wondered why Count Anton was telling her these things in regular intervals.  _Was she supposed to reply?_   _How could she?_   _She didn’t know what he was talking about._

While looking at Count Anton for answers, Julii noticed something that made her very curious.  He was motioning to the white and black thing as though it was providing the information.  _How could that be?_   _This was too exciting!_   _Something new._   _A whole new thing that she would have to learn about._

After a while, Count Anton looked over his big, flimsy white and black thing to look at Julii.  His expression was that of a proud father and the tone of his words were the same.  “When you have eaten your fill, I will take you shopping.”

 

 


	22. Transformation of body and mind

####  Transformation of body and mind

 

Leaving through the red front door in daylight was far more confronting than entering through it in the darkness.  Julii had to fight the urges that told her to _Just stay within the safety of Count Anton’s house for the rest of her life._

Much to her horror, the people outside in the street reacted to the sight of her in the same way as the white people in Atlanta.  It reminded Julii of the way the people of her village reacted to one of those horrible wild pigs running between the tipis.

Holding her firmly by the hand, Count Anton did not linger.  He knew how destructive these encounters must be for Julii.  He even placed an arm lovingly around her shoulder and stared shamefully into the eyes of as many people as he could, but her faltering body language told him it was all too much for Julii.

Returning to his house, Count Anton escorted Julii back through the red front door and gave a series of instructions to his staff.  After a brief and silent delay, the carriage driver opened the red front door from the outside and escorted them both to his waiting carriage.  The carriage did not have to travel very far.  The horses only had to walk for two of the things Count Anton called “blocks” along the street he lived on.

Julii understood that she could have walked the short distance in less than the time it took to reach her waterhole, but she also understood what Count Anton was doing.  _In the carriage she was anonymous, on the street she was a cause for derision._

Julii’s voice conveyed her gratitude.  “Thank you.”  Count Anton smiled his appreciation of her understanding.  

Julii noticed that the building they had stopped outside had a glass front.  It was like the tobacco shop that Count Anton had saved her from in Atlanta, but this one did not have a wooden chief outside or tobacco things in the glass window.  This one had people wearing fancy clothes inside the window.  _No!_   _They were not real people._   _They looked like white women, but they were carved like the shiny chief outside the tobacco store._   _Only their fancy clothes were real._

Leaving the carriage, Count Anton rapidly escorted Julii into the building.  Even in the short moment of time it took to cross the sidewalk, the white people close-by stopped walking to stare and sneer at Julii.

The tall glass door made a pleasant dinging sound as it opened and closed, and Julii was glad to be off the street.  She was looking to see how the welcoming dinging sound was made when a big angry white woman ran from the back of the building.  She was shouting: “Get that Injun the hell out of my store!”

Julii obediently turned to leave, but Count Anton stopped her.  One arm held her rigidly in place, while the other took out his folding hide thing.  Flicking open the folding hide thing, Count Anton showed the white woman many of the small flimsy cloth things and said: “How much money will it cost me to arrange a private fitting?”

Just like the man in the front of the tall building called “hotel”, the angry woman’s mood suddenly changed.  She walked to the door and snapped a bolt loudly home.  She pulled down something that had been rolled up above the top of the door.  Now no one could see in, and Julii felt as safe as she had in Count Anton’s home.

The big angry woman was no longer angry.  The big woman was smiling and Julii realized, _The cloth things that Count Anton had just called “money” had changed the man in the hotel and now they changed the angry woman._   _The things called “money” had led to her being fed with eggs and bread.  Now money was leading to something else._   _Something new and exciting._   _She must find some of this money for herself._   _It can’t be that hard to find._   _It doesn’t weigh much and lots of it fits inside a small thing the count was now calling “wallet”._

The big smiling woman beckoned Julii towards the back of her building.  “I have many beautiful dresses, and you have the most wonderful figure.  Come, let us see how you look in French silk.”

This was the first time a white stranger had said anything to compliment Julii.  She knew what a figure was because Robert had taught her all about numbers.  She had no idea what number the white woman was referring to in this situation but, whatever it was, she had a “wonderful one” and that felt warm and nice in her mind.

The big smiling lady held up a dress.  It was not deer hide.  It was like the full soft dresses that white women in Atlanta wore; like the one that touched her cheek when the women bent down in the building called “court martial”.  The color and the feel of the cloth were wonderful, bright yellow like the sun, and soft too.

The cloth shone when moved in the light.  The big lady pointed to a flimsy wall she called a “screen” and Julii walked obediently behind it.  She wondered what the screen thing was for because there was nothing behind it.  _Was it because she was an Injun?_   _Did they not want to see her naked?_

The big lady appeared on Julii’s side of the screen holding more beautiful bright soft dresses.  Hanging the dresses over the screen, she motioned impatiently for Julii to take off her soft hide dress.  Once that was done, she replaced it with soft white things she called “underwear” before covering that with the yellow dress.  It felt so smooth, so wonderful, so feminine.

The big smiling lady gestured for Julii to walk from behind the screen and look into a tall glass mirror.  Julii knew it was called a “glass mirror” because Robert’s horrible nanny had told her never to look into her “glass mirror”.

She liked how she looked in the glass mirror and, over her shoulder, she could see that Count Anton also approved of how she looked.  Over her other shoulder, Julii could see the big woman in the glass mirror.  She was also smiling, but hers was not a smile of approval.  _What was it?_   When the big woman noticed Julii looking at her, she was embarrassed and the mystery was solved.  _It was jealousy and envy._

The big woman saw the moment Julii grasped her inner thoughts.  She had exposed herself.  She turned away as though looking for more dresses, and a spiteful feeling of pleasure coursed through Julii.  _At least one white person was envious about something she had._

As a man, Count Anton was totally oblivious to the complex yet completely silent feminine conversation going on between Julii and the big lady.  He was busy trying to find something else within the many pockets of the thing he called “jacket”.

Pulling out a second, even thicker, wallet, he said, “We will take that one and as many more as you have.  Julii must have a complete wardrobe.”

At the end of Julii’s wonderful shopping spree, the brown carriage driver fastened Julii’s clean white dress boxes surrounded by colored ribbons to the roof of the carriage.

 They set off on the next leg of her adventure.  He did the same thing at the building called “shoe shop”, but the boxes were much smaller so he had to make fewer trips to load the multicolored shoeboxes on top of the carriage.

Unlike the “dress shop” and the “shoe shop”, the pretty woman in the place Count Anton called “the beatification shop” did not close the “blinds” at the sight of Count Anton’s money.  She shouted, “Get that Injun whore out of my shop!”

And she kept on shouting until he and Julii did as she ordered.

All of the peculiar-looking women sitting in chairs in the beatification shop applauded as Julii exited, but the pretty woman did not seem happy.  With her back to all the other ladies, the pretty woman stared at Count Anton’s departing wallet with a strange and mournful expression of longing and desire.

Returning to the safety of the carriage, Count Anton comforted Julii.  Deep in thought, he seemed beaten until he suddenly looked up and spoke in a thoughtful voice: “Injun whore?  That’s it!”

Banging on the ceiling of the carriage, he shouted to the driver:  “The saloon!”

When the carriage pulled up outside the building called “saloon”, Julii could hear music coming from inside.  Not music like her tribe made; this music was not made by drums and human voices.  It sounded wonderful and happy, but it was a sound Julii had never heard before.  She could not even guess how it was made.

Count Anton led Julii from the carriage, across the sidewalk, and through two small swinging doors.  They were not really doors like the doors in the other shop buildings or Count Anton’s house building.  There was no “glass” in these doors, just rows of wooden slats.  These doors would not have stopped rain or wind and a person could see over the top or underneath.  Julii could not see the point of going to all the trouble of building such strange doors.

After passing through the silly doors, she could see a man hitting a row of black and white teeth.  Each time he hit a tooth, the wooden thing surrounding the teeth made a wonderful noise.

Julii also saw men in various places around the large room.  Some of them sat at small tables holding flimsy white things with little dots or pictures of people on them.  Some were talking as they leaned against a long wooden thing with a vast mirror and bottles behind it.  Some spoke to fancy women while they sipped dark colored water from tiny glasses, but none of them bothered to look at her.

Julii was not used to being ignored by men and, for a fleeting moment, she wondered if this was worse than the looks of scorn in Atlanta.  Oblivious to Julii’s uniquely-feminine dilemma, Count Anton guided her gently through the room towards the stairs that led to the top of the building called “saloon”.

At the top of the stairs stood three more fancy white ladies in very fine dresses.  These dresses exposed much more of their chests than Julii’s new dresses; they were also trimmed with much more frilly white material.  Count Anton returned the three ladies warm smiles and said, “I wish to speak with whoever is in charge here.”

The three white ladies warm smiles all disappeared in the same moment.  They looked at Julii as though she were some kind of competitor.  One of the fancy women snarled, “You can get her the hell out of here, mister!  We don’t need no...”

The three warm smiles reappeared as Count Anton opened his wallet.  Once again, Julii saw the incredible power of money.  She watched Count Anton hand what he called a “bank note” to one of the fancy white ladies who walked to a door, knocked, then entered.

The fancy white lady returned with an older, harder-looking, tired fancy white lady.  The older fancy white lady looked Julii up and down and said, “Stop distracting my girls and get the hell out of here.  I ain’t buying.”

Count Anton sounded angry.  “You people should be ashamed of yourselves.  You treat this woman like an outcast but she is your fellow human being.”

The older fancy white lady did not bend in the face of the count’s anger.  She moved her face aggressively closer to Count Anton’s.  “You wanna preach to me about being an outcast?”

The older fancy lady turned to walk away.  Then, on second thoughts, she turned back to Count Anton and sounded really fed up as she pointed at Julii and said, “And before you get your fat ass out of my place of business, do you want to tell me how selling this girl into whoring’s gonna help her as _a fellow human being_?”

Count Anton laughter came spontaneously and Julii wondered how she had missed the joke.  Nothing had appeared funny to her.  The mood had seemed more violent than funny.

Still laughing, Count Anton opened his wallet and said.  “I am not here to ask you for money.  I am here to give you money.  Lots of money.”

He handed a bundle of money to the older white woman.  The older lady snatched the money in a rapid, greedy motion saying, “What’s the catch?”

“No catch.”

Count Anton pointed to Julii.  “I want you to make Julii look like you.  Well, not you exactly.  Like a white Savannah lady.”

“You saying I ain’t white?”

Counting the notes, the older fancy white lady did not wait for an answer.  She continued walking and Julii saw Count Anton embarrassed for the first time.  He fumbled his words.  “Of course I did not mean to say...  My dear lady, please forgive my...”

The older fancy white lady held up the money by way of silencing Count Anton.  “Calm yourself, honey.  I’ve been called a lot worse for a lot less than this.”

As she walked through her doorway, the older fancy white lady mumbled, “What’re you waiting for?  Let’s get started.”

Count Anton guided Julii cautiously into the older white lady’s room to find the older white lady half-heatedly attempting to tidy the mess of frilly clothes and shoes.

Julii was ordered to take a seat in front of a glass mirror.  She did what she was told because the tired older fancy lady was very scary.

Looking into the mirror, the tired older fancy lady’s eyes connected with Julii’s.  She gave an off-hand nod of her head towards Count Anton and asked, “So, what’s his lordship asking price for making you look like a sexy white girl?”

Julii did not understand.  She looked to Count Anton’s reflection in the glass mirror for clarity, but he looked embarrassed and extremely uncomfortable.  Red in the face, Count Anton left the room as he mumbled to no one in particular, “I think it’s best I wait outside.”

A little confused by the count’s embarrassment, Julii watched the tired older lady set to work on her hair.  At first the changes had not been very pleasing.  She felt sad watching her beautiful long blonde hair hanging wet and being cut with shiny things that made grinding noises as they opened and closed.

Julii had never thought about how she looked as being a thing that could be changed before.  She had always been herself, but now herself was going to be tampered with.  She had never in her life felt more vulnerable.  Even her days and nights in Atlanta paled by comparison to how exposed she felt at this moment, but _what could she do?_   Refusing change would condemn her to the life of an outcast.  There could be no logical escape so, mustering every ounce of courage, she watched her beautiful hair fall to the floor in damp, ugly clumps.

After the attack on her hair ended, the assault on her face began.  There was nothing gentle about the tired older white lady.  She went about her work like a hunter skinning a deer and it felt very unpleasant.

Over time, Julii noticed the older fancy white lady’s touch gradually grow softer as her expression slowly changed in the glass mirror.  She went from someone who could not care less, to resignation, to interest, to pride.

There was also a growing clamor in the room that came from the younger fancy ladies who came in to watch Julii’s transformation.  The small gathering grew as more and more of the fancy ladies came in to watch.  Like the older fancy lady, their faces also slowly changed, but theirs moved from disdain and ridicule to interest and amazement, then jealousy.

The magical powders and dyes being applied in subtle ways made Julii’s skin look paler and her lips look redder and fuller.  They also made her eyes look even more round than anyone else in her tribe.  By the end of the beauty session, every fancy white lady in the building called “saloon” was in the room admiring Julii’s new dress, new shoes, new hair and new makeup.  The untidy space was eventually so crowded with Julii’s admirers, they were pushing up against the older, tired, fancy lady.  Fed up, she shouted at the younger fancy ladies.  She told them to “Get the hell back to work!”

But they resisted because they all wanted to touch Julii’s hair and admire her clear, smooth skin and beautiful makeup.  The older fancy lady was left with no choice.  She turned to Julii and said, “You gotta leave before I go broke!”

Leaving the building called “saloon” was a far different experience to arriving at the building called “saloon”.  Outside the silly little swinging doors, Julii braced herself for the customary stares of derision, but instead men were looking at her with lust in their eyes.

Looking down at herself, Julii realized there was only one really noticeable change.  She was wearing her new blue dress.  _Had all of the disapproval experienced in Atlanta been caused by her hide dress?_   _Her wonderful hide dress that all of her people admired?_   _Was it that simple and insignificant?_   _Could white people not see past clothing to the person inside?_

This seemed strange, but Julii checked herself again.  _Other than her hair and the paint on her face, the dress was the only thing that had changed._   _There were the shoes of course, but no one could see them under the long dress._   _She was still the same person._   She was forced to make the inevitable conclusion.  _White people are shallow._

This was sad for them but good for her.  She had never exploited her power with the men in her tribe because, like her pretty mother, she chose not to be manipulative, but now things were different.  _Now she needed money and security._   _Now she was carrying the hurt of humiliation and abuse and fear._   _Now she was going to use every available element of this power to her fullest advantage._

In the time it took Count Anton to guided her to his carriage, Julii had glimpsed her potential for vengeance.  Everything she was about to become, everything she was about to achieve, everything she was about to do to this corrupted Confederacy was born of the power rediscovered in this moment outside that building called “saloon”.

 

 


	23. The Amulet

####  The Amulet

 

Outside the building called “saloon”, Count Anton could see that things had changed for Julii.  He even felt confident enough to ask her if she felt like walking. When she said “yes”, he helped her out of the carriage and politely sent his carriage driver away.

Watching the vehicle move slowly away from her, Julii felt panic rising, but Count Anton calmed her by placing her arm proudly in his before setting off to walk the few blocks home.

It was incredible.  None of the white people on the street looked at Julii with disdain.  The men who walked alone even looked at her with admiration and a little hunger.  The men who walked with women could not be as blatant, but they also glanced at Julii and, unlike her terrible time on the streets of Atlanta, this kind of scrutiny felt wonderfully empowering.

Julii instinctively knew with every hungry glance, these men were handing her their power.  She saw their desire for her as a form of surrender that could be exploited.  She now had something to negotiate with; something they badly wanted.  Something they could fight against but never escape.

She had seen her Robert betray a lifetime of racist beliefs and overcome narrow deep prejudice just to get to her, and she was going to manipulate this same hunger in other men.  Just a few more steps along the sidewalk and a few wary female glances told Julii that white men may be puppy dogs, but white women would not be so easy to tame.

She may be a mere _Injun_ , but she was an _Injun woman_ and she knew what all women knew.  Women may play passive roles, but they are far more cunning, astute and complicated than men.

She also knew that the effective control of men required the approval of their women.  She knew that women, white or red, do not surrender to other women so readily.  Gaining power over women was going to take more than beautiful hair and beautiful clothes and beautiful makeup.  Gaining power over women was going to require a different, more subtle, strategy.

Like all women who had been raised in a loving and stable environment, Julii understood that women who were secure in themselves would openly admire her.  Having been one for most of her life, Julii knew secure women did not fear beauty, confidence and intelligence in others.

She also understood that the women who looked at her with envy, or feigned disinterest or even blatant jealousy, would have to be placated by subtle forms of modesty and flattery and submission.  Using this opportunity to practice, Julii returned the supercilious smile of a passing woman who was both attractive and insecure.

That first smile failed.  The woman seemed threatened.  Julii tried another, more humble, smile on another woman, but this one seemed to antagonize its target.  Julii’s third smile hit the mark.  Its victim seemed just a little surprised such a beautiful competitor was not more combative, but Julii’s overly modest, humble and respectful smile seemed to flatter her and make her less guarded.

Julii understood this was the winning smile that would gain her an exploitable advantage, so this was the winning smile that was going to be practiced over and over in her glass mirror as soon as she returned to Count Anton’s home.

Count Anton sounded proud as he said, “This is a far better experience all together.  Don’t you agree, my dear?”

His encouraging words brought Julii back from her plotting.  As she agreed with him, she remembered something the tired, older fancy lady had said to her back in the building called “saloon”.  Turning to the good man who held her arm proudly in his own, she asked in a genuinely sincere, innocent and respectful tone, “What did the lady in the saloon building mean?”

Count Anton looked blankly back, clearly unable to remember what she meant, so Julii added, “Do you have an asking price for making me look like a sexy white girl?”

Count Anton’s expression turned from one of total pride to one of deep shame.  “Oh, my dear girl.  Please forgive me.  I desire absolutely nothing of you but your time.”

Stopping, Count Anton fumbled for something in his jacket pocket.  Red-faced he said, “I have been searching the world for you.  I have something that belongs to you.”

The thing he pulled from his pocket shone gold.  Still sounding apologetic, he added, “The first time one of my ancestors recovered this it was in a long forgotten chamber below the Circus Maximus in a city called Rome.”

Julii’s eyes locked onto the shiny thing held out in Count Anton’s hand.  It fascinated and captivated her.  _She had never seen it before in this life, but she knew it as well as she knew her mother’s face._

Its shape, its color, its patterns, its feel, even its smell, she knew them all.  _How could that be?_   Then she wondered, _Why had her thoughts made reference to “this life”?_   _What did “this life” mean?_   And, why had Count Anton said, _The first time one of his ancestors found it?_   Had his ancestors found it more than once?

Julii could see that Count Anton meant to slide the thing onto her wrist, and panic, pleasure, excitement and the fire of expectation coursed through her body.  Surprised by her own responses, Julii was even more surprised to hear herself say the words: “My lions”.

The amulet slipped over her hand and onto her wrist.  It fitted her birthmark so perfectly there should have been a click.  Time stopped for Julii.  The sounds of people and horses were still coming from the street, but she no longer heard them.  She had become someone and somewhere else.  Her mind was taking her to strange yet familiar places and she understood the meaning of the term “this life”.

All at once she stood in many different streets with many different people and many different horses and many different carriages.  Somehow these were her memories, painful memories, brought up from deep within her.  There were memories of many great cities; memories of many familiar people and many bloody battles.

Then Robert was there and they were standing together on the deck of the ship as it crossed the great ocean.  It was her dream and it felt real.  Then she was standing atop a high wall watching a violent battle unfold on a vast plain below at the edge of the great ocean.  Count Anton was there on the wall with her, as was Robert and her mother and her father and Ringwind and another woman that she had never seen before.

The unknown woman seemed caring and friendly and loving and somehow crucial to Julii.  The unknown woman held Julii’s hand warmly as they both looked sadly down to the plane below.

Julii recognized so many of the nasty people in Atlanta down on that plane.  They were fighting with a viciousness that she had never seen before.  They were the same glimpsed faces of the men who fought on both sides of the street riot in Atlanta but, in this memory, they were all dressed in strange leather armor.

While looking down, she could see her own strange dress and the amulet on her wrist, but it wasn’t her dress or her wrist.  She could feel a hand suddenly grasp the amulet on the wrist that wasn’t hers.  The hand was tight and aggressive and angry.  She looked up to see who was grasping her wrist so hard, so painfully.

It was a woman.  She recognized the face.  A different person in different clothes in a different time and place, but she was unmistakably Robert’s mother and everything started fitting into place.

She suddenly knew why the men staring at her in Robert’s parents house had seemed so familiar because they were all here in this strange memory staring at her in exactly the same disapproving way.  They were not the man with the bag called Doctor or Robert’s father or General Hardee, but they were the same men in a different time.

She was so close to understanding everything.  She could feel it.  Something extremely important was an instant from being made clear, when shaking returned her to the busy Savannah street and the vision, or fantasy, or dream, or whatever it was simply vanished.

The thing that had prematurely broken the spell was Count Anton’s shaking.  Just like last night in the carriage, he had a firm grip of her arms and an extremely worried expression as he asked, “Are you all right, my dear?”

Count Anton sounded truly alarmed and it felt as though hours had passed, but Julii was surprised to realize that the visions that filled so many lifetimes had passed in a moment.  Whatever had just happened had clearly been something extremely important.  It felt like something that defined Julii’s whole existence, but it had slipped away just moments before clarity.

Count Anton spoke in the tone of a shared secret.  “The shape.  Have you noticed the shape?”

Count Anton then pointed to the amulet and said, “My grandfather said your lions would fit your birthmark perfectly and it does.”

Understanding and clarity may have been prematurely snatched away, but at least the identity of “he” had been cleared up.  Then it hit Julii, _How could Count Anton’s grandfather have known about her birthmark?_

 

 


	24. Cecilia

####  Cecilia

 

While continuing their journey home from the building called “saloon”, Julii had hundreds, even thousands, of questions to ask, but Count Anton wanted her to save them until they arrived home and he had access to something he called a “pen and paper” to write her words down.

Even his need for a thing called “pen and paper” generated more questions.  _What was a “pen and paper”?_   _What did he mean?_   _Write her words down?_

Clearly sensing her confusion, Count Anton pointed to a number of long white bird’s feathers standing up behind the glass window of a shop and said: “Those are pens”.

Julii had seen a man in Robert’s court martial waving a long white feather such as the one in the window.  She remembered him dipping it into a little pot from time to time.  She had not given it a great deal of thought because there were more pressing things going on at that moment, but now she was extremely curious.  _Every single question led to more questions._   She was dying to get home and get started on them, but Count Anton stopped outside a building just a few doors away from his own.

This was frustrating because Julii was close enough to see his red door.  She wanted to pull at Count Anton’s arm but, to be polite, she looked from the beckoning red door to the window of the building and became instantly fascinated.  It was filled with lots and lots of still people that looked just like General Hardee on the front of the thing Count Anton called a “newspaper”.

Altogether confused by what she was seeing, Julii looked closer and concentrated harder, but her mind could not grasp how these people could be standing where they were.  _They could not be real people._   _They were small, still, flat, uncolored people standing in front of things like trees, tents.  One was even standing in front of a tipi wearing a war bonnet._

 _Many of the people were only faces without bodies, and none of them had their true skin color or even the correct color of the objects on them._   _What could this be?_

Seeing Julii’s confusion, Count Anton spoke as he pushed on the glass door full of uncolored people.  “This is a photographer’s studio.”

He spoke slowly so that Julii would understand, but he could see that she did not, so he added, “The man in this shop takes photographs.”

Pointing to the uncolored people behind the glass window, he said, “These are called photographs.”

Inside the building called “photographer’s studio”, there were many more uncolored people on the walls and on a long, fixed table that ran the length of the shop.

Picking up one of the uncolored people from the long table, Count Anton offered it to Julii with the words: “This is called a likeness.”

Julii held the “likeness”.  She was surprised to see that it was flat.  Turning the likeness she expected to see the back of the uncolored person’s head, but it had nothing on the reverse.  The reverse was just a white square; only the front of the likeness showed the uncolored person.

Julii looked up from the likeness, her expression filled with wonder and confusion.  She was preparing another long list of questions to ask Count Anton when a man walked from a darkened room at the back of the building holding a dripping likeness in his hands.

Julii took a terrified step backwards because the man was wearing one of those hide things that covered his front.  It looked like the hide thing that covered the man in Atlanta’s front - the man who had threatened to hurt her with the heavy wood and metal things simply for giving the striped brown man water.  _Did this man mean to hurt her too?_

Count Anton steadied Julii as the man looked up from the likeness in his hand and smiled.  He spoke to Count Anton with great enthusiasm.  “Good day to you, sir.  Welcome to my studio.  Do you wish to have a picture taken with your beautiful companion?”

Hanging the dripping likeness on a line, he added, “Will you be sitting together or separately?”

Julii did not understand what the man was saying.  _He had called someone “beautiful”._   _Did he mean her?_

Count Anton surprised her with his reply.  “We are not here for your services, sir.  We are here to see your wife.  She is the woman who teaches people to write English words, does she not?”

“She does indeed teach people how to write English words.”

Smiling, the man called Photographer added, “By your accent I can tell that you and your wife are from Italy.  Am I correct?”

Count Anton smiled before replying to the man’s question.  “Indeed you are completely correct.  I am from Italia.”

Julii was altogether wrong-footed by Count Anton’s reply.  She had been getting to grips with the idea of “photography” and “likenesses” and “beautiful” and wondering what “sitting together or separately” meant when the man changed everything with his question.

Her Robert had told her the meaning of the word “wife”.  _She knew what being a “wife” meant._   She had paid particular attention to that lesson.  _But what did it mean here in this strange photographer’s studio?_

Julii cast her mind rapidly back over the day and a half since meeting Count Anton.  _Had some kind of ceremony taken place?_   _In the kitchen room at the tall building called “hotel” perhaps?_   _Is that why he laughed as he boiled the eggs?_   _In eating his boiled eggs had she somehow accepted him as, what her Robert called, a “husband”?_   _Had he tricked her?_   _Had she been snared?_

Julii looked down at the amulet wondering if it was some kind of wedding gift when the man in the hide thing departed through a second doorway at the back of his photographer’s studio.

Count Anton pointed to two seats in front of a tree and they sat down to wait for something.  Julii noticed that it was not a reel tree.  It looked round but it was flat.  _It was the tree that people in the likenesses were sitting in front of._

Julii was wondering whether it would be rude to ask if she was married when the man called Photographer returned with a woman about the same age as Julii’s mother.  She recognized her immediately.  She was the nice woman from Julii’s earlier vision; the one who stood with her on top of the high wall holding her hand as they looked down at the battle below.

Count Anton stood to greet the nice woman, so Julii followed suit.  The woman stopped in her tracks and stared at Julii.  Her expression was thoughtful and her words filled with curiosity.  “Have we met somewhere before?”

Julii’s sudden urge to cuddle the woman was almost overwhelming.  She had to hold herself back.  She wanted to explain her recent dream or vision or fantasy, but Julii did not want to be thought of as insane so she said nothing.

After a long pause, the man called Photographer broke the silence with the words: “This is my wife Cecilia.”

Then, as his wife shook Count Anton and Julii’s hands, he did a very strange thing.  He walked away and hid his head under a black cloth attached to a wooden box standing on top of three legs.

Totally ignoring the man’s odd behavior as though nothing strange was happening, the wife called Cecilia smiled warmly at Count Anton and asked, “Does your wife have any understanding of the English language?”

Count Anton laughed.  “Julii is my companion not my wife.”

Cecilia seemed embarrassed.  She gave the man under the black cloth and angry glance as she said, “Please forgive me.  My husband said you were married.”

The man hiding under the cloth said “sorry” and Julii felt a little relieved.  Her usually acute powers of observation had not failed her.  _She was not married._   Then she felt guilty about her feelings of relief.  He may be older than her, he may also be heavy, but she would be lucky to be married to such a kind and decent man.

Julii felt ashamed of herself.  _Had she really believed he had tricked her?_   And this thought led her to a most-challenging thought, _Was she still the kind, honest, honorable person she had believed herself to be before meeting her Robert?_

At that moment came a flash of lighting and a crash of thunder such as Julii had never seen or heard before.  She had never in her life been afraid of lightning or thunder, but this was coming from inside the building.  There was smoke.  More smoke than the leafless branch at that awful place called Shiloh, and the noise was louder than the distant thunder on the day she met her Robert.

Jumping to her feet like a terrified jackrabbit, Julii bolted instinctively for the door.  Grabbing the handle, she pushed and pulled but could not make it open.  That few seconds delay gave the wife called Cecilia time to catch up to Julii.

Her single-handed grip on Julii’s wrist became a two-armed cuddle as the wife called Cecilia encouraged Julii to lay her panic-filled head on her shoulder.  She spoke calming words in a soothing tone as she gently stroked Julii’s hair.

It felt safe, like being in her father’s tipi.  Safe like her mother kissing a wound to make it better; safe like being with her Robert.  Somehow, the wife called Cecelia’s embrace felt safe like coming home.

Lifting his head from under the black cloth, the man called Photographer looked sheepishly at his wife; for some reason he appeared to be extremely embarrassed.  “I am so sorry.  Please forgive me.”

Between calming words and gentle strokes of Julii’s hair, the wife called Cecilia escorted her back to Count Anton.  Glaring at the man called Photographer, she snapped, “What the hell were you thinking?  Are you completely insensitive, man?”

Count Anton took Julii from the wife called Cecilia and helped her back to the seat in front of the flat tree.  He spoke in a calming voice.  “Do not be afraid, my dear girl.  What you saw is called a _flash_.”

Count Anton’s words were gentle and soothing, but his look at the man called Photographer was one of anger and frustration.  “You have no idea what terrible things this young woman has been through!”

The man called Photographer’s voice pleaded for forgiveness as his eyes moved between his wife called Cecilia, Count Anton and then Julii.  “I simply had to take your wonderful likeness for my own collection, you see?”

Pausing, he pointed to all of the likenesses hanging on the walls.  “Rest assured I will not be charging you for the picture.”

 The wife called Cecilia became even angrier as she locked eyes with the man called Photographer.  “You can’t just do that!  Have the decency to ask a person’s permission!”

“Please accept my apologies.”

The man called Photographer was apologizing to Julii personally.  “I will give you a copy of the picture.  As I said, there will be no charge.”

The wife called Cecilia turned back from her groveling husband and spoke to Julii in a calming voice.  “Will you accept my husband’s apology?  His picture and my services will be completely free of charge.”

Julii looked to Count Anton for guidance.  Seeing his subtle nod of the head _yes_ , Julii replied, “Yes”.

Count Anton then took control of things.  He spoke to the wife called Cecilia with great respect and kindness.  “Julii will accept your husband’s apology and his likeness, but I cannot accept your kind offer.  Julii will be requiring a great deal of your time and I insist upon paying your fee in full, Madame.”

Count Anton and the wife called Cecilia then set to work negotiated the thing he called a “fee”.

Julii understood everything that was being said, but they did not seem to expect her to participate so her thoughts moved onto something more interesting.  _The man called Photographer had pointed to the likenesses on the wall when he said he would give her likeness free of charge._   _The flat tree was in so many of the displayed likenesses and she had been sitting in front of the flat tree when the lightning struck._

 _The lightning “flash” must have been involved in making her likeness._   _Therefore, somewhere in this building called “photographer’s studio” there must be a likeness of her sitting in front of the flat tree._

Julii was so excited.  She really wanted to see the likeness of herself.  _Where was it?_   She walked around the room feverishly looking at every likeness hanging on the walls, but she could not find the one of her.

When Count Anton noticed the wife called Cecilia becoming distracted, he broke free of his negotiations to follow her eyes and look at Julii.  Understanding her dilemma, Count Anton turned to the man called Photographer and said in an agitated tone, “You must put Julii’s mind at ease.  You must explain what is happening.”

Looking up from his work, the man called Photographer took a while to understand what Julii was doing.  When he worked it out, he looked a little sad and, once again, sounded apologetic.  “I am so very sorry.  Let me explain how photography works.”

Walking to Julii, he gestured for her to follow him.  “I have taken your picture with this camera.”

He pointed to the box on three legs.  “I must remove the plate from this camera then develop it in my dark room.”

Covering the box with the black cloth, he removed something he called “the plate”.

Then he gestured for Julii to follow him to the first door at the back of the room.  As he entered he said, “Please come and see what I do in my darkroom.”

 

 


	25. Miss Dotty

####  Miss Dotty

 

After three weeks of long breakfast conversations, Count Anton realized that experiences such as learning the existence of people outside her world, the horrors of that awful place called Shiloh, the cruelty shown to the appallingly-treated brown people, those savage white people in Atlanta and, of course, first love found then ripped brutally away, must all have changed Julii and not for the better.

He understood how meeting her Robert by the waterhole must have changed Julii’s world from one of eminently predictable routine to a stumbling existence of insecurity and shocking surprises and life-threatening events, so he decided to make things right.

In an attempt to provide a stable, healing environment, Count Anton and his staff now went to great lengths to maintain an assured pattern of behavior in Julii’s everyday life.  Every meal was served at exactly the same time and every day had its unique menu.  Julii knew exactly what she would be eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner on any particular day of the week.

She especially liked Wednesday because prosciutto ham from a place called Parma in the country called Italy was her favorite.

Even going to sleep was always at exactly the same time.  Waking up was at exactly the same time, baths were taken at exactly the same time, and clothes and shoes and bonnets and hats were worn on the same days.  A hundred little things were done at exactly the same time, and all of this routine had served to bring some measure of stability to Julii’s harried mind.

Every morning at eight o’clock, Samantha and Tilly came in to wake Julii, but she was always already wide-awake.  She did not mind the gap between waking and their arrival because she particular enjoyed luxuriating in the soft bed that was always warm, even on the coldest mornings.

Julii also liked the feel of her soft “nighties” and was privately amused by the fact someone had gone to all the trouble of embroidering something only she would see; something she wore in bed, alone, at night.  The fact that no one but she could appreciate the beautiful silk stitching around the collar and cuffs made it feel like her secret, and that felt intimate and safe.

Count Anton also tried to maintain Julii’s predictable environment outside his household.  Even his carriage driver went to great lengths to maintain her routine by always traveling along the same streets and visiting the same places at the same times.

Whenever he dropped Julii at Count Anton’s Savannah offices, the Count’s office staff were briefed to bring her black tea with lemon and sugar cookies at exactly the same time to the same seat at the same desk where Julii always sat.

Julii was definitely on the road to recovery and everyone in Count Anton’s house was proud of the part they played but, unbeknown to them, one thing could still shake her out of her rational place of security.  It was her irrational, almost reflex, desire to share every one of her new experiences with her Robert.  Even though she tried really hard not to do it, she just couldn’t help herself.

Every time something new and interesting happened, Julii instinctively sought his approval or advice or observations or comments, and this became a problem because almost everything she did was new and interesting.

Whenever he popped into her head, Julii berated her unconscious mind.  Her Robert was gone forever, and even she understood that she had to let him go and move on because lingering on his memory was not a healthy thing to do.  She fought really hard to block him out, but something deep inside still needed the security of her Robert’s memory and, unable to fully let go, chose to hide him deep within without her permission.

Always artful, and always hidden, if she ever got close to working out what was going on in her untrustworthy subconscious, her denial would find cunning ways of taking Julii’s thoughts down less confronting pathways to distract her.  One of the regular methods of distraction was repeating interesting, and recently learned, English words.  This, coupled with immersing herself in the predictable routine of daily life, allowed Julii to mask her unhealthy reliance on her Robert’s memory as she learned to function within Confederate society.

Unfortunately for Julii, her inability to fully let go of her reliance on her Robert was destined to remain dormant like a steadily compressing spring set to recoil at a moment that would cost Julii her life.  But for now, simply having some kind of future was a good enough reason not to go searching for a cure.

Count Anton called these her “glazed eye moments”; “Julii’s lost minutes.”

But he never said, or did, anything that would interrupt her mental wandering because he wrongly assumed they were healing moments.  He simply used the time to eat more food and read his newspaper or business documents until he heard the woman called Miss Dotty’s inevitable pathetic tapping on his doorknocker.

The older lady from the saloon’s half-hearted tapping always irritated Count Anton.  It was the only part of Julii’s routine that he could not bring completely into line.  In the beginning he had offered Miss Dotty lots and lots of money to come early in the morning, but she simply laughed and said things like: “I don’t do mornings, honey.”  Or, “Consider yourself lucky I make it before midday.”

Then, holding her head in an overly dramatic display of pain caused by her inevitable hangover, she would add something that passed all of her troubles and all of the blame onto Count Anton.

Sometimes it was: “And for Christ’s sake do something about that goddamn doorknocker!”

Other times it was, “You got a nerve dragging me out of bed so early!”

And other times it was, “How come my breakfast is always cold?”

With the money Count Anton was prepared to spend, he would have had no problem finding another woman, even a high born white woman, willing to take care of his young charge’s hair and makeup.  He had even suggested a change, but Julii said she truly liked the way the older fancy lady made her look.  Because he never wanted Julii to set foot in that awful saloon ever again, Count Anton had to accept a compromise.

Each morning, after Count Anton’s late departure, Miss Dotty and Julii would climb the stairs to her bedroom to engage in the real reason why Julii enjoyed her mornings with Miss Dotty.  The woman was totally uninhibited and frank when it came to what she called her “hot off the press working girl’s client’s gossip.”

Julii did not yet understand what work her “working girls” actually did but, whatever it was, they were told the most intimate things.

Strangely, Miss Dotty would happily talk about the detailed sexual habits of many of the most high-status white men and women in Savannah, or even her own sexual habits, but she could grow quite angry about being asked the most mundane questions.  On one occasion, Julii made the mistake of asking Miss Dotty’s age.  She was never going to do that again.  On another occasion, she asked politely if “Miss Dotty had children?”  That question provoked tears and terrible sadness and was added to the growing list of _don’t ask_ questions.

Some mornings Miss Dotty would crawl onto Julii’s bed making some poor excuse like, “It’s important for you to know how to do your own hair and makeup, honey.  So, today I’m gonna let you and your niggers do the work.”

If Julii looked overly disappointed, Miss Dotty would offer logical explanations like: “For when you all go on trips and I ain’t there to help, and whatnot.”

On these occasions, Miss Dotty would drop directly off to “snoring” sleep, leaving Julii, Samantha and Tilly to “Take care of it.”

Julii could never quite understand where she stood with Miss Dotty, so she always behaved as her respectful subordinate.  Then after three weeks of wildly unpredictable makeup sessions, Miss Dotty said in an offhand way, “You don’t have to call me Miss Dotty all the time, honey.”

When Julii respectfully asked what she should call her, Miss Dotty answered, “Just call me Dotty, sugar.”

Then, while lying down on Julii’s bed, she added as an afterthought, “Although right now my name should be Kitty.”

Looking at the reflection in the mirror, Julii could see that Miss Dotty was about to drop off to sleep without explaining her intriguing comment, so she plucked up the courage to ask: “Why should you be called Kitty?” 

Without opening her eyes, Miss Dotty adjusted the damp cloth on her forehead and answered: “On account I’m running a crazy cat house right now.”

It was clear Miss Dotty wanted to sleep, but Julii simply had to ask another question.  “What is a _cat house_?”

Miss Dotty tried to end Julii’s curiosity by opening her eyes and giving her a killer look in the mirror, but Julii was not losing interest.  “I’m a pussy wrangler, honey.  Now do your hair like I showed you.  Miss Kitty’s got a doozy of a hangover, sugar.”

Miss Dotty sighed as she felt Julii sit down on the bed next to her.  Reluctantly opening her eyes, she said, “Pussy.  You know what pussy is, don’t you sugar?”

Completely confused, Julii lifted her amulet, pointed to the lions and said, “Pussy, like my lions are pussycats?”

Miss Dotty laughed.  “Jesus no.  If the pussy I wrangle were dead, like them pretty ones on your bracelet, my life would be a whole lot easier.”

Pulling the damp cloth over her eyes, Miss Dotty added, “It’s the things that keep my pussies alive what causes me all the trouble.”

Then in a dismissive tone, “You should try your hair up today, honey.  Now, go away and let me sleep.”

Probably because the bed did not move, Miss Dotty removed the damp cloth and opened her eyes again.  Seeing the confusion on Julii’s face, Miss Dotty laughed.  “You do know what my girls do with their pussies, don’t you honey?”

When Julii shook her head _no_ , Miss Dotty laughed and launched into a detailed explanation of the workings of a cat house.  It surprised Julii to learn that women can sell the wonderful thing that she and her Robert had done together for money.

“Quite a lot of money.”  Miss Dotty said when Julii quizzed her about it.

Miss Dotty also said, while looking at Julii without a trace of her customary sarcasm, “Why, if you weren’t so rich, I coulda used you in my upstairs rooms.  A girl looking like you.  I’m guessing a virgin?  Anyway, Id sell you as a virgin just as many times as I could get away with it.”

Thoughtfully reaching out a hand to stroke Julii’s hair, Miss Dotty smiled.  “Dress you up in a hide frock like a wild Injun squaw.  You’d make a hell of a lotta money for both of us.”

Pausing, Miss Dotty laughed to make sure her next words could be taken as a joke.  “How about it, sugar?”

Julii did not get the joke.  She took the question very seriously.  She hated saying “no” to Miss Dotty, but the thought of doing the beautiful thing she had done with her Robert with several of these awful Confederate men made her feel physically ill.

Julii thought she saw a hint of genuine sadness in Miss Dotty’s eyes as she said, “I was just joking, honey.  That is unless you want to, of course?”

 

 


	26. Teaching the teacher

####  Teaching the teacher

 

At the conclusion of her unpredictable sessions with Miss Dotty, Julii spent the second half of her days in a far more dignified and respectable fashion.

The photographer’s wife Cecilia was the moral opposite of Miss Dotty.  She would arrive each afternoon, diligently on time and fully prepared to teach Julii how to read and write.  Things usually went smoothly, but sometimes Miss Dotty’s influence would find a way to crossover and embarrass Cecilia.

One such day had started with Julii’s urgent need to find the words “pussy” and “pussy wrangler” and “cat house” and “virgin” and “coulda” and “lotta” and “rich” in the book called “dictionary”.

Straight-laced Cecilia spent the rest of that lesson red-faced trying to explain things called “slang words” and why Julii’s conversation with Miss Dotty could be considered “a little shameful”. And, “While Julii should not be ashamed of asking, it was not the kind of conversation a lady should be having in polite society.”

Besides embarrassment, the other problem Cecelia faced was working out a curriculum that Julii could work to.  She went to great lengths to challenge her pupil, but whatever Cecilia prepared for their afternoon lessons, Julii always got ahead of her within the first half hour.  Julii’s ability to read and rapidly understand everything she read was only surpassed by the speed with which she did it.

To fill the rest of the time, Cecilia brought more and more books to read and discuss.  Even her huge family Bible was pressed into service and, once Julii realized the Holy Bible had been the leather thing _full of leaves_ at Robert’s horrible court martial, she saw it as something evil that had to be fully understood.

Grasping the book’s importance to the white man became her obsession.  Julii read it and re-read it looking for ways to exploit its power.  It was as though she sucked meaning, even the most nuanced meaning, from every page.

When she wasn’t reading the Bible, she was sucking meaning from other books.  Any and every book in town was searched for and read.  Her reading became faster and faster without sacrificing understanding, and the resulting shortage of new reading material set off a chain of events that caused the most remarkable things to happen.

Count Anton instructed one of his blockade-running ship’s Captain’s to fetch books from Europe on his return voyage.  Naturally he spoke Italian to his Italian captain, forgetting to specify the language of the books; so the first books to arrive were all printed in Italian.

Berating himself for his own stupidity, Count Anton did what he should have done in the first place and put pressure on his fawning Confederate clients to fix the book shortage.  Desperate to please the man whose materiel’s kept them in the war, the high ranking officer’s sent orders that resulted in cases of books being sent from almost every major city in the Confederacy.  Before these books had a chance to arrive however, Julii had taught herself to read Italian.

This in itself was extraordinary, but it was the way she did it that proved truly remarkable.  One of the Italian books brought back from Rome by the ship’s captain was an Italian translation of an English book.  The book was written by a man called Charles Dickens, and his book _A Tale of Two Cities_ had already been read by Julii in its original English.

Julii immediately understood that if she read both books simultaneously she may be able to teach herself another language.  Excited by the prospect, she dedicated all of her free time to the task and performed this remarkable feat in just one week while her teacher looked on in amazement.  From then on Julii’s personal library was extended to all of the books that came in all of the packing cases from Europe.

Julii’s hungry mind devoured Italian book after Italian book at rapidly increasing speeds.  It didn’t seem to matter what the books were about.  She enjoyed fiction, biographies, romance, suspense and anything in-between.  Just as long as it was printed on pages set between two covers she would read it.

During what Cecilia playfully called, _Julii’s Italian period_ , she had very little to do other than explain the meaning of new words that cropped up from time to time.  This gave her the opportunity to read books written in English while sitting next to her student on the grand couch in the Count’s living room.  As they lost themselves in their individual stories both found themselves physically and mentally moving closer and closer together.

They regularly emerged from the fantasies freed from the written words to find themselves leaning on each other.  Sometimes Julii’s head was even laying in Cecilia’s lap and neither knew how it got there.  On other occasions Cecilia found herself gently twirling Julii’s hair with one hand while holding her book in the other.  They had become as close as mother and daughter in an unnaturally short time of knowing each other, yet it felt so right.  Almost as though they had known each other before, in another life.

Everything went smoothly until the day Cecilia’s mind _returned_ from a story to find her student crying while holding a book entitled, _A history of the Roman Republic._   She tried to comfort her but Julii was inconsolable.  She asked what had upset her but when the answers came all she could do was listen sympathetically to a series of explanations which made absolutely no sense.

To make things even more odd, Julii apologized to Cecilia personally with the words.  “How could I have known Sulla had not yet sailed for Asia?”

When Cecilia asked for clarification she was told, “If I had known Sulla was training his armies in Italy I would never have placed you in such danger.  Can you ever forgive me?”

Totally confused and unsure of the correct answers, Cecilia spoke supportive; soothing words while trying to read the open pages in the offending book.  Unable to understand Italian, she ask Julii to explain what was written there.  When the clear and detailed explanation came, through heartfelt sobs, Cecelia was no closer to any kind of understanding.

She pushed for further clarification but, even though she listened intently to every detail of Julii’s long and complex explanation, she could not understand why a violent conflict between two powerful men who lived in ancient Rome at a time before Christianity should affect her so.

When Cecelia gently pushed even harder for further illumination she was told, “It was Sulla’s return that caused the bloody murder of thousands of Rome’s population.”

When Cecelia showed no sign of understanding what she was being told, Julii went on in a more solemn tone, “Sulla’s soldiers murdered hundreds of the Senators who voted to banish him from Rome.”

Cecilia could tell by Julii’s expression that these words should be holding some kind of shocking meaning for her directly.   She wanted to play along in order to calm Julii down but she also wanted to understand what the hell was going on in her troubled mind.

In a seemingly last ditch attempt to convey the gravity of what she was saying, Julii ended her nonsense with another personal plea, “Can’t you see?  I caused your death and the death of all of those Senators!  It was me who caused Marius and his entire family to flee Rome!  I caused all of Rome’s suffering!  It was me!  Can you ever forgive me, Cecilia?”

Still in the dark, Cecilia completely understood how the horrific events described in the book may cause shock, what she could not understand is why they were so shocking for Julii personally.  Looking into her deeply troubled, and somehow distant eyes, she could tell they were pleading for an answer to her sad question so Cecilia said the meaningless but supportive words, “I forgive you, Julii.”

 At the very moment this mock forgiveness was granted, Julii slumped into Cecilia’s arms.  After just a few more moments her head slid down to Cecilia’s lap as her feet curled up on the couch.  Hardly moving Cecilia heard Julii’s breathing become shallow and regular like someone who was falling asleep.

Totally baffled by events, yet fearful of making her pupil relive the distressing thoughts hidden in the history book, Cecilia did not move.  In truth, she hardly breathed.  When evening came her inactive body ached where it pressed against the couch.  She grew hungry and thirsty but still did not move for fear of upsetting Julii all over again.

Even when Count Anton came into the living room to inform Julii it was time for dinner, Cecilia remained still as her pupil snored softly in her lap.  Totally embarrassed by the predicament she found herself in, Cecilia did her best to explain what was happening.  Expecting the worst, she was relieved to see Count Anton matter-of-fact reaction.  He behaved as though Julii’s strange performance was somehow normal; even expected.

Sitting down in an armchair he commended Cecilia for doing nothing that would break the spell Julii appeared to be under.  He gently supported Julii’s head to allow Cecilia the chance to relieve herself.

When Julii’s sleep became disturbed Count Anton assumed she must be missing her teacher’s lap.  He offered Cecilia money to return to her awkward sitting position on the couch, but refusing any reward, she volunteered her services willingly.

Later, when Cecilia worried about mundane things like preparing her husband’s dinner, Count Anton sent him enough money to eat in any of Savannah’s finest restaurants.  When she spoke of becoming hungry herself, he had food and wine carried in on trays for both of them.

He also cut Cecilia’s food into small pieces so that she could eat with her one free hand.  After all of Cecilia bodily needs had been taken care of they both sat quietly watching and waiting for an opportunity to help the young woman they now regarded as their suffering surrogate daughter.

As the hours of darkness passed Count Anton could see the thrashing movements that Cecilia was feeling.  Julii’s body was contorting as though it was being made to suffer terrible physical pain and the most remarkable thing for Cecilia was, she felt as though this was not the first time she had supported Julii through the suffering of a long night.

As the sun came up, Cecilia and Count Anton were extremely worried about Julii’s mental condition.  They discussed the options available to them.  They argued about Julii’s needs being physical or mental.  They wondered if they should be calling for a physician or some kind of tribal healer, if such a person even existed in such a white man’s city like Savannah.

As Julii showed signs of waking they both braced themselves for what was going to happen next.  Even though they were both exhausted they remained in a state of cat like readiness but much to their relief and amazement, Julii simply awoke as though nothing had happened.

When Cecilia made enquiries about her dramatic reaction to the things she had read in the history book, Julii couldn’t remember anything about it.  Both the story of Rome and the pain it caused appeared to be completely forgotten.  Relived, but also bewildered, Cecilia went unenthusiastically home for some much needed sleep while Count Anton stayed awake to see if he could find out more about Julii’s break with reality.

Later that same morning during breakfast everything seemed to have returned to normal until the next remarkable thing happened.  Julii began talking about the places she had read about in books like the one by Charles Dickens.  She seemed to be experiencing the same distant yet familiar feelings for these places as the strange memories provoked by the lion amulet and the Italian history book.

Julii spoke with incredible familiarity about many countries and many cities.  She showed particular interest in the counties called England and France in _A Tale of Two Cities,_ and the city called Rome in the history book _._

Count Anton’s initial reaction was to say, “Something the French call _déjà vu_ perhaps, my dear?”

Julii spent the next ten minutes quizzing Count Anton about the origin and the language and the meaning of “déjà vu”.  When she had completely extracted everything he knew about that tiny French expression, Julii said: “Exactly.”

Julii then went on to say, “I have more of these déjà vu memories.  Sometimes I dream of crossing a great ocean on a ship with Robert, sometimes I stand on top of a high wall looking down on a great plane below, and sometimes I see a place made of high white stones.”

Upon hearing this, Count Anton stopped eating and politely asked Samantha and Tilly to “Please leave, and do not return until called for.”

Empty dishes and cups and saucers were rapidly collected up, heaped on trays, and taken to the kitchen.  When the door closed behind them, Count Anton looked at Julii and asked: “Your city made of high white stones?  Does it have tall round things holding up the roofs of tall buildings?”

Julii nodded her head _yes_ and said, “There are beautiful curved, rounded lines cut into the white round things that go all the way from the bottom to the top.”

After saying the words: “Columns and flutes”, Count Anton adopted a serious expression and said, “I think it is time for me to tell you what I know about your lion amulet and your connection with my family in Rome.”

Count Anton looked Julii directly in the eye as he said, “My grandfather could never have met you, but he did believe you would exist.”

Pointing to Julii’s amulet-covered birthmark, he added, “He also believed you hold significance for our family.”

Count Anton paused for a moment and asked thoughtfully, “Excuse me, Julii.  I want to make myself perfectly understood.  Do you understand words like, significance?”

Julii’s reply held a hint of the cheeky humor she had learned from Miss Dotty.  “Would you like the significance of the word explained in English or Italian?”

Count Anton smiled.  “Of course.  My grandfather said you would be very clever with languages, just like her.”

Julii had heard Count Anton refer to “he” a number of times before but never “her”.  She remembered his words clearly in the kitchen room of the tall hotel building and during their carriage ride on the day they met.  Count Anton had said: “He was right.  You are very intelligent.”

There was no way around it.  She may appear stupid and shatter his illusions but, mustering all of her courage, she had to ask: “Who is _her_?”

Count Anton had to think deeply before saying, “How can I explain?”

Count Anton refilled Julii’s cup with very hot tea before going on.  “What I am about to tell you is a confidence which has been kept completely within my family for hundreds of years.”

Pointing once again at Julii’s amulet covered birth mark, Count Anton went on.  “You see, various members of my family have been searching for you; your birthmark and your amulet for generations.  And, on only very few occasions, we have believed we found you.”

As he went on to describe his family’s encounters with a woman who looked exactly like her in various countries through many ages, Julii experienced more fleeting feelings of _déjà vu_.

When Count Anton spoke about his family’s very beginnings in Rome at a time before Christianity, Julii found herself responding exactly as she had to the story in the Italian history book.  She relived vivid events and time appeared to melt away.

When her mind returned to the dining room Julii realized Count Anton must have been speaking for some time because there was no longer any steam rising up from her teacup.  Where that time had gone was a mystery.  One moment there had been lots of steam, then there was none.

Touching her cold teacup, Julii was embarrassed to realize her conscious mind had registered nothing of what Count Anton had been saying.  Each time he mentioned another time, person and place her mind was sent unconsciously searching in a new direction.  Just like the story in the history book, she found herself reliving intense memories of being in these places and being with the people he spoke about.

When he stopped speaking, Count Anton seemed not to have noticed Julii’s mental escape because at the end, he simply paused and said, “So?  What do you say?  Will you come with me and find out if any of these fantastic things are truly possible?”

Unsure of what to say, Julii looked across the table and noticed Count Anton had written something down.  When he started speaking about his ancestors there had been no quill; no ink pot and no paper but now the page was filled with scribbled notes.

Noticing her confusion he slid the page across the table to show her what was written as he told her, “These are your words.”

Looking at the page, Julii read words like, _Gavius._ And, _Please forgive me._   And, _I treated you so poorly._   There were also lines and lines of notes about, _Sending you to Hispania was selfish and wrong._   _I was blinded by greed, anger and seeking revenge._   _Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me, Gavius?_

After reading, Julii looked up into the Count’s ever forgiving face.  She had no memory of saying these words or why she called him Gavius.  Neither did she know where he wanted to take her, but she trusted him completely.  She also needed to understand what was happening to her so staring back at the man to whom she owed everything, she said: “Of course.”

Count Anton smiled and said, “Good.  Because my grandfather went to his grave ignorant and disappointed.  I do not want the same fate for myself.”

 

 


	27. Business

####  Business

 

Max, the man who ran Count Anton’s business in Savannah, was not completely incompetent, but Julii knew he was out of his depth within just a few minutes of meeting him.

Even though he considered himself important, his blustering attitude and boasts of meetings with famous people like General Hardee, General Robert E Lee and even President Jefferson Davies seemed to betray his underlying lack of confidence.

Somehow, Julii just seemed to naturally understand his showing off was intended to hide some kind of inner flaw.  She could see right through the weakness his bravado was designed to mask as though she had dealt with this kind of straw man somewhere in her past but, of course, that was impossible in this life.

Seeing Max’s incompetence so clearly was a major problem for Julii because she genuinely wanted to trust and respect the man who ran Count Anton’s business.  He was very important to her savior and absolutely no threat to her, but something, which felt impossibly like experience, told her not to.

Count Anton was no fool.  Julii could see that he knew the man he employed was not the best.  She could see that Count Anton was having to fix his mistakes, but she also understood that most of the able men in the South were fighting Yankees.  The smooth-talking man called “Max”, or “Maxim” when anyone important was within earshot, was clearly the best he could do in the circumstances.

Because Max had the good fortune to be born into a rich and well-established slave owning, plantation family, Count Anton used him to open doors.  Once through those doors, even the highborn southern aristocracy could tell he was incompetent.

Behind his back, Max was known by all in the office as “the chocolate teapot”.  When Julii ask Cecilia to explain the meaning of Max’s nickname, the answer made her laugh.  “He looks very good and seems perfect for the job, but when you pour in the boiling water he simply melts.”

From Maxim’s point of view, working for the only really well-organized blockade runner in the South allowed him to “blowhard”, while hiding his sniveling cowardice behind a seemingly legitimate reason not to fight in the front lines like all of the other young men in the South.

Of course there were other blockade-runners, but they were mostly “get rich quick” whalers, grain shippers and coal lugers who had converted their vessels to carry arms from the West Indies to Confederate ports.  Many of these blockade-runners were excellent sailors who knew the eastern seaboard extremely well, but unlike Count Anton’s brand new fleet of copper-sheathed steam clippers, their wind-powered ships were not the latest technology.

Many of the vessels were old and slowed by waterlogged timbers, which allowed the northern navy’s battleships to catch and sink them with great ease.  None of these small-time blockade-runners had the need for a back office man like Max, which gave him the unique privilege of being the only General Manager of a blockade runner “exempt” from war service in the Confederacy.

As the war lumbered towards its third year, Max’s contribution was being seen by Confederate generals as even more essential.  Count Anton’s ability to bring materiels all the way from Europe and predictably run the blockade was fast making him the South’s greatest asset.

Unfortunately for Max, the office was about to be made incredibly efficient by Julii’s inherent organizational genius and, in a devastating twist of fate, those remarkable abilities were about to expose Max’s shortcomings.

In an attempt to learn how Count Anton’s business functioned, Julii spent her first few days in the office with Max.  He was too slow to even see her as a threat, and Julii had no intention of being one.  She simply asked searching questions about the business because she truly wanted to help him, but he would always veer off into boastful and annoyingly time-consuming anecdotes.

When she wanted to know something like how the prices of commodities were determined, he would drift completely off-track by saying irrelevant things like, “I remember a meeting to discuss pricing where President Jefferson Davis himself was in attendance.”

Listening to his inane nonsense was frustrating for Julii, but she always smiled and listened because she wanted to work closely with Max in order to help the count.

Always waiting silently, Julii listened until he finished speaking and looked to her for some kind of approving response.  Because she really wanted to be friendly, Julii would give him an impressed expression, or a fawning word of surprise, or an awe-filled smile.

Even when he took many, many, many annoying minutes to answer Julii’s actual question, she never interrupted him.  An odd side-effect of Max’s verbal diarrhea was his ability to expose even more of his own character flaws, because Max would always go on to shoot himself in the foot.

While talking about being at a meeting with President Jefferson Davies, he would say something stupid like, “Of course, Jefferson Davies had been at the far end of the table and he never actually spoke to me, but none-the-less, the President was there.”

The most fascinating thing for Julii was his innocent ignorance.  He seemed to have no idea that his additional words were rendering his whole conversation irrelevant and undermining his own credibility.  Max had the uncanny ability to marginalize the significance of his own role but seemed to have no idea that he was doing it.

Julii tried a number of subtle ways to rein in his stupidity but, whatever she tried, he could not seem to stop himself.  Making a fool of himself was damaging for Max, and Julii saw it as a harmless distraction until she saw what his manifest incompetence was also doing to Count Anton’s business.

The way he gave away all sorts of unnecessary concessions during negotiations made Julii decide to work alongside Max in order to make him seem more proficient while, at the same time, making him less of a liability to Count Anton’s business.  He was a fool, but not a bad person; she would help guide Max to success and, in so doing, benefit her savior.

Much to Julii’s amazement, Max had been totally blindsided by her initiative.  He had only dropped his guard with her because he saw Julii as a rich white lady, and rich white ladies simply do not work in the South.

Not understanding how Max saw Julii as a threat to his power, Count Anton upset him further by saying: “Did you know Julii has learned three languages within a matter of a few weeks?”

With the pride of a doting father, Count Anton added, “A mind like Julii’s will benefit our operation and help you reduce your workload greatly, will it not Max?”  Caught in Julii’s totally accidental trap, Max could do nothing but agree.  

Setting herself the task of reading everything written on every piece of paper in every polished wooden filing cabinet in the office, Julii set to work.

The simplicity of the filing system of buff files hanging in alphabetical order pleased Julii greatly, and it only took two fascinating days and evenings to read everything about the business.

Somehow it all made sense.  Julii had no possible reason to know how the practicalities of buying, selling and shipping commodities actually worked, but somehow she did.  There was also absolutely no reason for Julii to understand the complexities of shipping vast quantities of goods from one country, which she had never seen and barely even heard of, to another, but, once again, she did.

Everything seemed to be instinctive.  It felt like something deep inside her knew exactly what to do with the information that leapt from every page.  Unfortunately, Max’s errors also leapt from every page, but at the end of it all, Julii believed she had the knowledge required to help him.

On the morning of her first official day at work, Julii gently asked Max a list of questions that concentrated on his most glaringly-obvious mistakes.  He remained calm for about the time it took to answer half of one of them before exploding.  “You come in here and try to change everything, when everything is working perfectly!”

Julii truly wanted to help Max, but his volatile anger made that impossible.  By raising his voice he let an office, full of people who spent half of their working lives fixing his mistakes, know that he believed the business was going well.

Because Julii had only ever told the truth, apart from placing the leaves on her Robert’s head when his wound had already healed, she found it hard to understand why Max was annoyed.  He had caused all of the problems she wanted to discuss, yet he was angry with her.  This was a new human trait, one Julii had not yet come across.  She tried a calming tone and said things like, “Let me explain”, or “Have you thought about this?”, but he was always defensive and didn’t want to hear it.

Julii tried explaining logically with calming statements like: “Having read the files, I have found a number of things that do not seem to be working properly to Count Anton’s advantage.”  Then in a soothing tone: “If we change them, you will save time and Count Anton will make more money.”

But these exchanges just made Max angrier and more uncomfortable.  He even shouted, “This is my office!” and “You don’t belong here!”

Julii had trouble understanding these outbursts.  _Of course it was his office._   _Who else’s office could it be?_   _What did the office have to do with anything?_   _What was he trying to communicate to her?_   _What had she missed?_

She tried something new, something more direct; something she felt would calm Max down while clearing things up for him.  “You are making mistakes and I can help you fix them.”

But even these extremely clear words did not help because Max stood up and shouted: “Get out of my office!  Now!”

As Julii respected his wishes and left, she wondered why Max would expose his incompetence so.  He must know she would tell Count Anton, and Count Anton would not be happy to be losing money.  _Why had Max refused her help?_   She could have saved him, but now every scenario she played in her head ended with Count Anton sending Max away.

Sure enough, Count Anton had been as upset as she had predicted, and, sure enough, Count Anton had confronted Max, and, sure enough, Max had behaved like an immature simpleton and, sure enough, Max had shouted about “how indispensable his services were to the count’s operation”.  Of course he threatened to resign in a manner that was far too aggressive and could not be withdrawn and had to be accepted.

Julii was not particularly pleased to see Max go.  She felt confused, frustrated, responsible and deeply sorry but harbored no doubt that he had placed himself in this ridiculous predicament.

She also felt annoyed because she was not yet feeling confident in her abilities.  She believed she needed another person’s help if she was to pay back Count Anton’s kindness.  So, shortly after Max’s dramatic departure, Julii penned a letter offering Cecilia the role of office manager in Count Anton’s blockade-running business.

 

 


	28. Scourge of the southerners

####  Scourge of the southerners

 

Within a week of Max’s departure, everyone in the Confederacy learned there was a new kind of blockade-runner in the South.

Unlike her predecessor, Julii had taken the time to study the capital assets of the South and compared them to the capital assets of the North.  She believed even a fool could see the South was strategically impoverished.

Much to the horror of the southern generals, Julii’s first order of business was to completely ban the use of Confederate paper dollars from all future negotiations.  This already bad news was made far worse by Julii’s unwillingness to waste time sugar-coating her demands.  _Why would she?_   She hated the powerful generals of the South. 

She simply did not care that, during her very first meeting as Max’s replacement, the powerful generals deeply resented hearing: “Your Confederate currency has a very poor chance of maintaining any value if the North wins the war.”

Having the value and stability of their beloved currency questioned was outrageous; no one in the South talked about anything to do with the war like that.  No one even entertained the possibility of defeat.  Had anyone else expressed such doubts it would have been considered treasonous, but the Count’s blockade-runners were the only thing keeping the Confederacy alive, and that made Julii untouchable.

From the moment her decree was issued, every shipload of urgently-needed armaments arriving from Europe and the West Indies was held on board until it had been paid for in full with bails of high grade cotton, or vast quantities of tobacco, or, when she could apply enough pressure to the treasury, bars of pure Confederate silver and gold.

For a new nation used to receiving favorable credit terms and long settlement dates, this was a major insult, but Julii, quite simply, did not care.  Unlike her unintentionally brutal dealings with Max, when it came to dealing with the Confederate hierarchy, she was deliberately malicious.

The abrupt delivery of her swift and radical changes left them feeling slighted and helpless, but because Count Anton would not even hear of removing Julii, they had absolutely no recourse.  All they could do is watch as their precious assets were loaded onto the Count’s ships and sent away to Europe.

Without exception, all of the once complacent southern generals longed for the return of Max.  They all missed bamboozling him and getting their own way all the time.  To a man, they all hated Julii, but their rigid upbringings and polite ethos prevented them from treating a woman in a less than gentlemanly manor, so they sat in meetings and held their tongues as Julii tied them up in knots.

During her first meeting with General Hardee she had expected him to expose her as an Injun but, even though he had seen her at the awful court martial and stood two feet from her during the riot in Atlanta, he did not recognize her.

Like all of the southern generals, Julii knew Hardee was eaten up with frustration and hidden anger because of the way she treated him, but she also knew, when it came to women, southern gentlemen were bound by extremely silly rules of correct behavior.

Julii would sit quietly watching them search for new ways to placate her.  They flaunted their brightly-colored collar decorations and their battle honors and the long fluffy feathers in their hats, but all of those things had the opposite effect because they brought back terrible memories of her Robert’s hideous court martial and subsequent murder.

Julii now knew the origin of those hated feathers because she had read a book about Africa.  There on the page had been a drawing of a tall, ugly bird that had those long, fluffy, and much despised white feathers protruding from the end of its useless, stumpy wings.  The picture had the word “ostriches” printed beneath it.  It amused Julii to read that the common belief was ostriches bury their heads in the sand because “If they cannot see a predator, the predator cannot see them.”  It entertained her to make the obvious comparison between the denial of the stupid bird and the denial of the stupid Confederate generals.

 _She hated them all!_   She hated the way the so-called “southern gentlemen” could shower love and adoration on their wives and children while buying and selling a brown man’s wife and child.

She hated the way “southern gentlemen” would make great sacrifices in order to provision white soldiers, while forcing a brown man to toil in the raging sunshine with little access to food and water.

She hated the way a “southern gentleman” would treat their livestock and pets better than they treated their brown people.

She hated the way a “southern gentleman” would shout at another white man who did not open the door, or remove his hat, or stand for a white lady, while thinking nothing of having another woman beaten nearly to death simply because of the color of her skin.

She hated the way they sat at the count’s meeting table looking like benevolent grandfathers and treating her with respect because they didn’t know she was an “Injun”.  She wanted to scream at them and reveal herself, but that would not serve her vengeful, long-term plans.  So she smiled and listened to their polite conversation as she watched them drink the count’s tea and eat his cookies and waited for her chance to hit them back.

On the day General Hardee finally gave her some of the vengeful information she craved, Julii was so lost in her bitter thoughts she almost missed it.  She had to stop him in mid-sentence and ask him to repeat what she thought she heard him say.

Delighted by his obvious ability to impress such a fine southern lady, General Hardee did as he was asked.  Between sips of the count’s expensive Indian tea, he repeated what he had been saying.  “New Orleans has been completely blockaded by the North’s ironclads.”

Then, by way of impressing her further, he added, “Savannah is now the only deep sea port open to us.  You are now our most critical source of supply.”

Julii smiled her sincerest smile as she replied.  “And we will keep that supply chain open until the inevitable southern victory, General.”

The General was all but melted by her flattering gaze and that amused Julii.  It also amused her to know her gushing words were not just lip-serving nonsense.  If she had been so disposed, she could actually have helped the South because she had read about and, more importantly, understood military strategies in her many history books.

Books such as the _Iliad_ , which explained the strategies behind the Greeks siege of Troy, and books which explained the strategies of General Sulla and General Marius during many Roman wars, and a book which described the battles of a French King called Louise XIV and an English Duke called Churchill.  There were books which explained Napoleon and Wellington’s strategies during European wars, and even books that explained the strategies of Washington during the American War of Independence, and they had all been devoured by her hungry mind.

As well as finding every account in these books oddly familiar, every strategy employed by each of the protagonists also seemed obvious to Julii.  In every single book, the armies in all of the wars were marred by exactly the same mistakes and, having studied the confederate reports of the first battle of Bull Run, Shiloh and the second battle of Bull Run, Julii saw the classic mistakes of the past being duplicated by the Confederate generals.

After listening to General Hardee list provisions required for a battle near a place called Antietam, Julii studied a map of the area and realized they were about to do it again.  She felt like stepping in to tell the high command that the Persians had made all of the same mistakes during their disastrous defeat at the hands of the Athenians in the Battle of Marathon, but she didn’t.

It all seemed so glaringly obvious to her, but she held her tongue and watched as the disaster at Antietam caused the death of 26,000 men and the shameful retreat of General Lee’s Confederate army.

As luck would have it, the meeting where Julii found out about the disaster at Antietam was also the meeting where she found out the rest of the information required to complete her first act of personal vengeance.

One of the insignificant generals made the novice mistake of showing off in front of Julii.  Like a child seeking her approval, he wanted to show her that he was important.  He simply could not resist telling her about being placed in command of a town called Vicksburg.  He even went on to say, “The blockade of New Orleans now made that little town, on the banks of the Mississippi, the key to all supply movements in the South.”

As though tempting Julii to act, he went on to say, “Everything moving up the Mississippi from the south and down from the north must now go through Vicksburg.  My role will be critical.”

She was in the process of memorizing the name “Vicksburg” when she felt an ever-familiar disturbance in her tummy.  It was the sudden and uncontrollable need to throw up that had been coming and going for weeks.  Having only the time it took to reach for a waste paper basket to react, she vomited all of that morning’s breakfast right in front of the pompous generals.

All of the men at the table were shocked and deeply concerned for Julii’s health.  Some stood and dashed to her side, while others sat in shock as she heaved, again and again, into the basket.

The meeting, which had almost concluded anyway, was adjourned.  Cecilia showed the generals out and said the farewells while promising to distribute her minutes of the meeting to all.

She then escorted Julii to Count Anton’s home where, much to her surprise, Julii’s first task after being put to bed was to ask Cecilia to gather all the information they had about a particular area of land along the Mississippi river.

 

 


	29. The Underground Railroad

####  The Underground Railroad

 

Sometime during the morning after Julii threw up in front of the Confederate high command, Miss Dotty tumbled into her room, lay down on Julii’s bed, and placed a moist towel over her eyes.

The deeply hung-over cat house mother didn’t even notice that Julii was still in bed until Julii said, “Good morning.”

Leaping to her feet, Miss Dotty had the audacity to berate Julii for sneaking up on her, while Julii turned to throw up into a basin on the floor next to the bed.

After things calmed down a little, Miss Dotty gave Julii a nasty look, fell back onto the bed and went to sleep.  Julii climbed out of bed and sat in front of her mirror as Samantha and Tilly bickered about which one would apply what type of makeup.

In the middle of it all, Cecilia came in and handed over the requested information about the mostly empty tract of land on the banks of the Mississippi river.

As she was being made pretty, Julii read the files full of information about crop yields, livestock numbers, population figures, road capacities and contour maps of the area.

When Cecilia asked why Julii was interested in a patch of land where the only place of interest was a “nothing” town called Vicksburg, Julii was too busy throwing up to answer.  Samantha said it must be “Something she ate.”  Tilly insisted that it was “Some kind of tummy bug going around Savannah.”  Cecilia thought it might be stress because “Julii worked far too many long hours.”

But it was Miss Dotty who accurately picked what was ailing Julii.  Not even bothering to open her eyes, she spoke in a hoarse matter-of-fact voice.  “Ain’t neither one of you right.  Your mistress gone and got herself knocked up.”

When Miss Dotty heard nothing but silence, she removed the moist towel from her eyes and asked “You still there?”

Four shocked women stared silently back from the place in front of the mirror as Miss Dotty added, “Oh sure.  My girls get knocked up all the time.  And let me tell you it’s a real pain in my ass.”

Placing the moist towel back over her eyes, Miss Dotty returned her aching head to the pretty lace-covered pillow as Julii grasped the fact she was carrying Robert’s baby.  Feelings of pleasure and satisfaction overwhelmed her.  _She still had a part of the man she thought lost forever._

Everyone in the room, except one, was also very excited and happy for Julii.  They all kissed and cuddled Julii, then kissed and cuddled each other.  It was like a child’s party until the mood was suddenly broken by Miss Dotty.  She had been the obvious “except one” and she had the audacity to say: “I know a doctor who’ll take care of that there bastard for you, honey.”

Julii asked for clarity, and Miss Dotty did not sugar-coat her answer.  It took a moment for the full meaning of Miss Dotty’s words to sink in.  Julii even had to ask Cecilia to clarify exactly what Miss Dotty was getting at, and when she did, the most appalling row broke out.

Samantha dragged Miss Dotty from the bed and physically heaved and pushed her towards the door of Julii’s bedroom.  She was shouting, “You ain’t never gonna kill Miss Julii’s baby!”

Using her weight advantage, Samantha shoved Miss Dotty clumsily out of Julii’s bedroom and onto the landing.  As she went, Miss Dotty shouted just as loud in reply, “Ain’t no nigger in Savannah gonna get away with pushing me around!”

At the sound of the commotion in his usually calm home, Count Anton came running upstairs to see what was happening.  His breathless surprise and displeasure was initially directed at Samantha until she let go of Miss Dotty, turned to him, and said through her tears, “This here woman wants to kill our Julii’s baby, Mister Count!  You just can’t let her kill Miss Julii’s baby!”

Count Anton’s reaction went in two different, yet simultaneous, directions of shock and surprise.  The first came out in his words to Miss Dotty.  “You want to kill Julii’s baby?”

Then, in almost the same moment, as though surprising himself, he turned to Julii and asked, “You are pregnant?”

Realizing the implications of his own words, Count Anton crossed to Julii and cuddled her.  “Is it...”

Recognizing his mistake, Count Anton changed his tone from excited to somber.  “Is it his?”

Julii’s tears told him everything he needed to know.  While still holding Julii, Count Anton looked at Miss Dotty.  He sounded genuinely confused and surprised.  “But why would you want to harm Julii’s baby?”

Miss Dotty made a point of pushing Samantha vengefully away from her as she said in her aggressive tone, “I didn’t want to harm no one’s baby!  Your nigger here got all uppity for no goddamn reason!”

Count Anton’s voice found a tone that no one in his household had ever heard before.  It made his anger very clear while maintaining the dignity inherent in a highborn existence.  “Never, ever refer to my housemaid as a nigger while you are in this house!”

Miss Dotty was more taken aback by hearing this than being manhandled by a nigger.  She was even more surprised to hear Count Anton say, “You will use her correct name.  I know that you know it because I have heard you use it, many, many times to give Samantha orders.”

Miss Dotty was now as shocked as it was possible for any white woman in the South to be.  Her outrage and complete incredulity came unmistakably through her angry question.  “You’re taking this here nigger’s side over mine?  I ain’t never heard of such a thing.  You, sir, ain’t no gentleman!”

Miss Dotty turned and walked down the stairs firing a barrage of “last words” as she went.  “How was I supposed to know she wanted to keep the bastard?  Who in their right mind would want to keep a bastard anyway?  Don’t make no sense!  Goddamn nigger lover!  You and your niggers ain’t heard the last of this!”

As Miss Dotty stormed out of the red front door and disappeared into the street, Count Anton embraced Samantha.  She was crying and shaking uncontrollably.  Her blood was cooling and the realization of what she had done to a white person was pulsing around her body.  The fear in her was palpable.

Count Anton’s words were nothing but supportive and calming.  “Be still now, Samantha.  You were protecting your family.  You did nothing wrong.”

Samantha wept tears of a muddled combination of terror and gratitude.  Julii embraced her from the other side to Count Anton, and Samantha let go of the repressed fear, agony, anger and shame unfairly borne by every brown person in the South.

Julii kissed her forehead dearly as she said, “You are safe here, Samantha.  We are all safe here.”

But, even as she comforted Samantha, Julii knew immediate action was required if she was to save her friend.  She had no doubt that Miss Dotty had the vindictive temper to organize a lynch mob and, in the South, white folks could lynch any brown person just as long as they compensated the white owner for loss of property.

Julii knew what form her action should take because money was the only thing Miss Dotty ever wanted, so offering her some of that seemed like a good place to start.  As luck would have it, money was something Julii now had lots of because, despite her constant protests, Count Anton insisted on paying her a significant salary for her hard work.  Every month he gave Julii large sums of cash that she had no use for because he paid for everything she wore, ate and did.

On the afternoon of the day of the dreaded incident with Miss Dotty, Julii forced herself to ignore all feelings of sickness, got dressed, dragged herself to the Count’s office, and sent a runner to the saloon.  Inside the envelope he carried was a thousand of her own Confederate dollars, a card offering her personal apology, and a request for Miss Dotty to pardon Samantha.

Julii told no one she had sent money because she was ashamed of her own actions.  She really wanted to storm over to the saloon and give Miss Dotty a piece of her mind.  It was the cat house mother who should be punished, and “sucking up” really felt wrong, but she hated the thought of Samantha being victimized for what she had done to defend her and her Robert’s baby.

There was great relief when the runner returned with news that Miss Dotty had “graciously” accepted the cash and agreed to take no further action, on the condition Julii send a further thousand dollars to compensate for loss of earnings.  Under the circumstances, Miss Dotty no longer believed she could take care of Julii’s hair and makeup.  Julii sent the runner back clutching another full envelope without even a hint of hesitation.

She immediately returned home to tell Samantha and Tilly, in words punctuated by many tears of relief and comforting hugs, that Miss Dotty had agreed not to retaliate.

A strange side effect of this peculiar incident was an even stronger bond between all three of them.  The deep mistrust that all brown people had for white folks, however friendly, had now been completely removed between them.  Samantha and Tilly now spoke to Julii as though she was, as they put it, “A nigger like them.”  Julii corrected them by saying, “They were red niggers like her.”

With the last barriers to trust removed, the three women spoke as openly as sisters.  The trusting maids spoke about everything freely.  Samantha and Tilly even told Julii how they gave the money Count Anton insisted upon paying them to an organization called “the Underground Railroad” which was run by some “good white folks” who smuggled slaves from the south to the north and up into a place called Canada.  Hearing this, Julii knew she had found a good way to spend all of her cash, as well as a good idea for the final part of her Vicksburg plan.

The very next day, Julii asked to meet the man who ran the Savannah end of the Underground Railroad.  Samantha sent a message to the man they called “the preacher” and, two days later, he walked calmly to the back door of the kitchen.

He wore all black clothes with a white collar.  Julii was intrigued by both his serenity and his collar.  It stood stiff and upright like the yellow collar Confederate officers wore, but his white one had no gap at the front.  While sitting at the kitchen table wondering how the white collar worked, he interrupted her thoughts by speaking though his warm smile.  “I believe you asked to meet me?”

By way of a greeting, Julii slid a large, fat envelope across the kitchen table.  The preacher looked inside and smiled as Julii turned to Samantha and Tilly and said, “Join us at the table and please bring four teacups.”

The preacher was clearly impressed with the way Julii treated her niggers.  His voice was warm and sympathetic.  “Thank you for giving us the means to save more human beings.”

Thoughtfully he added, “May I ask why you donated so much money to our cause?”

Julii reply was serious and passionate.  “Let me just say, I know what it is like to be mistreated by the people of the South.”

“You?”

The preacher sounded genuinely surprised.  His confused expression showed that he was about to ask another question that Julii did not want to answer.  She cut him off with the words: “Suffice to say, I want to help you because, other than the count, you are the only white person I have met who sees brown people as human beings.”

The preacher’s reply was melancholic.  “I am deeply ashamed to admit it but that is very true.”

Then, as a sad and thoughtful afterthought, he added, “Unlike my brethren of the cloth, I do not subscribe to the southern interpretation of the good book.”

Looking confused, Julii asked for clarification.  “By the good book, do you mean the book called the Bible?”

The preacher replied: “Yes, but I do not personally believe God put Negros on this earth as inferior beings to do the white man’s bidding.”

Julii looked and sounded even more confused.  “I have read your _good book_ many times, but I do not remember reading anything about that.”

The preacher looked terribly embarrassed as he said, “It is an extremely loose interpretation.  But let us not dwell on the negative when you have done something so positive.”

Without further delay, Julii handed another envelope to the preacher saying, “The first envelope is yours to keep whatever you decide to do at the end of this meeting.”

Pointing to the second envelope, Julii added, “In that envelope is a reward for something I need done.”

Pausing, Julii waited for the preacher to open the envelope and look at the money.  Pleased by his surprise, she went on.  “I have been able to gather enough Union dollars to buy a good-sized farm in Canada.  It is for the person who carries something north on my behalf.”

As the preacher looked at the strange-looking currency, he found a folded letter.  Julii nodded at the letter as she said, “Please read the letter.”

As he read, the preacher became suspicious of Julii’s motives.  He glanced at Samantha and Tilly to judge their reaction.  His expression asked, _have I been set up?_   He was risking his life and everyone at the table, particularly him, was aware of it.  Just moments from leaving his chair and the kitchen, he was calmed by the two brown women’s obvious lack of concern.

With a deadpan expression, Julii asked, “The human beings you help escape pass through a city in the north called Washington DC, yes?”

The preacher nodded his head _yes_ but his tone was suspicious.  “Most do.”

Julii produced another envelope from within her petticoats.  This envelope was thinner than the first.  As she slid it across the table, she said, “Please read this letter.”

The preacher looked at the envelope.  It was addressed to “The War Office” and his tone conveyed his fear.  “Does that refer to the war office in Washington DC?  The war office of the North?”

“It does.”

Julii paused to let the implications of her envelope sink in.  She waited for the preacher to finish his sip of tea before going on.  “I assume that you are a man who would like to see the end of this Confederacy, am I correct?”

When the preacher nodded his head _yes_ , Julii placed her hand solemnly on the envelope.  “Whoever carries this envelope will be in great danger.  Those dangers must be made clear to that person before he, or she, agrees to carry it for me.  Can you guarantee this?”

The preacher’s smile returned.  This time his tone conveyed irony.  “Anyone found traveling along the Underground Railroad is usually returned to their slave masters for a beating or lynched immediately and without trial.  The only person endangered by that envelope is you.”

“Nothing in that envelope can be traced back to anyone at this table.  Can it be posted in Washington?”

The preacher picked up the envelope and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket as he said, “For the price of a farm in Canada, I believe I can safely say your letter will be posted.”

After the tea was drunk, the preacher shook hands with all at the table and left silently through the back door.

 


	30. Vicksburg

####  Vicksburg

 

General Hardee would forever blame himself for what happened on the sixth of July 1863, the day he received disastrous news that the forty-day siege of Vicksburg had ended in a total, crushing defeat.

The news in itself was both surprising and devastating for the South, but that was not why he blamed himself.  He blamed himself for what delivering the bad news, so thoughtlessly, had done to Julii.

As a southern gentleman, he should have handled things in a more subtle manner.  He should have thought it through, but the news was so deeply troubling, and he was so deeply troubled by it, that he reacted more like a general on campaign with his army than a gentleman at a civilized meeting.

In his defense, Julii was extremely pregnant, the topic of the original meeting was routine, her attendance had not been entirely necessary, and the courier’s sudden entry to hand him the communiqué had taken him completely by surprise.

None-the-less, General Hardee believed he should not have blurted out the terrible news about the fall of Vicksburg without laying some preparatory groundwork first.

He should have built to the news of General Grant’s extremely well executed invasion into the Deep South.  He should not have just come out with: “It was like that damn Yankee knew everything about Vicksburg.  If I didn’t know better, I would say he was born in the South!”

He should have stopped there, but he continued with, “It was like he knew precisely how to get in undetected and what assets to destroy!”

Even this would have been an acceptable place to pause, but he went on with the shocking words: “In one short campaign, Grant has completely broken our supply lines with our southern states.”

The only thing General Hardee could find not to be upset about his behavior was the manner of Julii’s collapse.  It had not been dramatic or violent, she had merely said, “Oh.”

General Hardee now berated himself for turning to Julii and saying in a far too sarcastic tone: “You may well say _oh_ , Madame.”

The general had no way of knowing what Julii was actually expressing with her “oh”.  He, like all of the officers sitting at the table, believed she was shocked and upset about such a bitter defeat.  The truth was, Julii actually said “oh” because she was in the simultaneous grip of two powerful emotions and one unstoppable physical process.

The first emotion was surprise.  She found it hard to believe her letter, sent so haphazardly north six months earlier, had resulted in her vengeful idea coming so completely to fruition.  The second emotion was a sudden surge of overwhelming and angry spite because, after months of biding her time, she had finally delivered a crippling blow to the evil Confederacy that had murdered her Robert.  It was her baby’s reaction to that surge that caused her “oh”.

It took a little while for the military men at the table to realize that Julii’s “oh” had not been a lament for the good people of Vicksburg.

Her expression did not seem to fit the news, and it told them all something else must be going on with Julii.  The way Julii held her very swollen tummy should have been another clue to what was happening, but the men at the table, even the ones with children of their own, were soldiers who believed it was a woman’s duty to deal with woman’s troubles.

All of them, to a man, could take charge of a complex military action.  They could give orders to maneuver thousands of men in the heat of battle without a moment’s hesitation but, in this instance, none of them knew how to help Julii.

General Hardee was the first to ask, “What is it, my dear?”

Julii’s reply, “My waters have broken”, might just as well have been words in a foreign language because the men, even the ones who knew what Julii meant, still had no idea how to respond.

Because of his senior rank, General Hardee took command of the situation as best he could.  He helped Julii to her feet then walked her from the meeting room, apologizing over and over for his insensitivity.

He seemed truly shaken and quite penitent until they passed one of the black messenger boys who worked as fully paid employees at Count Anton’s office.  Seeing the boy, General Hardee’s voice turned from sweetness and light to foul bile.  “Go in there and get the mess cleaned up, boy.”

Julii realized that being a man with absolutely no idea about the workings of the female body, his imagination had conjured up a flood of biblical proportions.  As he helped Julii into Count Anton’s carriage, General Hardee looked directly into her eyes.  He was silently begging for her forgiveness.

Julii gave him a well-rehearsed, deeply troubled smile that conveyed her discomfort, while portraying herself as a stalwart martyr.  She even spoke in a saintly voice.  “Please do not trouble yourself, General.  How could you possibly have known that your insensitive words would cause all of this to happen?”

Julii knew full well her words would not bring General Hardee relief.  He tried to hide his true feelings, but the little lines around his eyes betrayed him.  They tensed for only a microsecond.  It was just an infinitesimal movement, but it was enough for Julii to see his pain.  Julii’s expression, tone and words had struck deep, and she extracted evil pleasure from it as he closed the carriage door.

At last Julii had struck a blow.  Even better, she had heard the news in the deeply troubled voice of the man who had ordered her Robert’s murder.  Best of all, Robert’s murderer was now genuinely distraught because of his apparent lack of tact.

She would have liked to stay and make life worse for the general, but she could feel the baby moving.  Robert’s child really wanted to come out and she had to get home.  She would have to be satisfied with the vindictive memories of General Hardee’s troubled emotional state.  She would use them to take her mind away from the pain of giving birth to her baby.

By the time Julii made it home, Count Anton had called a doctor who, with Cecilia, Samantha and Tilly in doting attendance, delivered the healthy girl without any complications.

Everything went exactly as Julii expected until she was amazed to see the doctor cut the cord between her and the baby with a very sharp knife.  When she asked, “Why do you not use your teeth?” the doctor looked at Julii to see if she was making a joke.  Unsure of how to react to Julii’s still-questioning expression, the doctor laughed.  His laughter started Samantha and Tilly laughing, and by the time Count Anton was allowed into Julii’s bedroom, he was greeted by all four people laughing hysterically.

Taking the baby from Julii’s arms, he waited for the laughter to die down before asking, “What are you going to call our wonderful new girl?”

A single word projected by Julii’s voice sprang from somewhere deep within her mind but without her consent.  “Helen.”

The swiftness of her answer came as a surprise to Julii.  It felt as though she was hearing the name at exactly the same time as Count Anton.  The only reason she knew the name “Helen” was because of a book called the _Iliad_ written by an ancient writer by the name of Homer.  She had connected greatly with the story of Helen and her lover Paris and the battle for the city of Troy, but she had never even considered naming her child Helen before this moment.

Julii needed time to think it through, but before she could give it any thought, the name was cemented in place by Count Anton’s excited words: “Helen?  An excellent name.”

Rocking the baby in his arms, Count Anton whispered to her.  “Helen, pretty little Helen.”

He looked like a doting father and Julii would never dream of doing anything to disappoint her savior, so the baby’s name was Helen.

 


	31. Helen

####  Helen

 

Helen was healthy and Julii was happy and, after the birth, Count Anton’s household seemed to exist solely for their well-being.  Without exception, all of the staff loved beautiful little Helen as much as they loved Julii.

Samantha and Tilly both competed for time with Helen.  They couldn’t wait to smother “their” baby with love and kisses whenever she woke up or finished breastfeeding.

Sometimes their bickering got so out of hand, Julii had to intervene.  On one occasion, Count Anton had to call them to his study to have serious words.  This “staff conference” was supposed to be somber.  It was intended to instill discipline, but when Julii wandered into the study holding Helen in her arms, Samantha instinctively reached for the child, then Tilly, then Count Anton found himself competing, and the disciplinary meeting broke up into laughter.

Somehow the world outside was forgotten.  It was as though the count’s home had become an island of blissful sanity in a sea of war.  Outside his home there were downtrodden slaves and shortages of every kind, men with missing limbs on the streets, and women wearing black armbands to mourn their lost husbands and brothers and sons, but inside was normality and fun.

In this happy little bubble, Julii was able to forget the troubles of the outside world.  She would gladly have spent the rest of her life hidden away from reality, but after only a month of recuperation, she felt duty-bound to return to work and repay the generosity and kindness of her wonderful host.

Her decision to return so soon after the birth caused great surprise and shock among the society ladies of Savannah.  It was unheard of for a white lady to even work, let alone take her baby to work with her, but Julii no longer cared what white people thought of her.

Julii’s absence could have had a negative effect on the count’s blockade-running organization but, because of the well thought out business structures she had put in place before Helen’s birth, she was pleased to find it was working like a well-oiled machine.

Given their head, the staff had flourished and were now very capable of making very positive decisions on their own.  Julii’s skills were required less and less.  When she grew bored with the lack of challenges, Julii began positioning herself as more of an overseer.  Whether she was there or not, the systems she had put in place made sure the business kept on thriving without her, so she carved out greater and greater chunks of time to spend with no one but baby Helen.

She felt proud of her baby and her achievements and the respect she was shown by her able and trusted staff.  For the first time since the day she met Robert by the river, Julii could honestly say she was truly happy.

Unlike the Savannah mothers, who were hampered by their perceived status, Julii pushed Helen’s pram through the streets by herself.  At first her behavior was considered extremely odd by the “women of good breeding” but, one by one, the fashionable young mothers of Savannah began relieving their nannies and pushing their own children in an attempt to make themselves appear as “radical” as Julii.

It amused Julii to see how her radical behavior was setting a trend.  It also amused her to observe these “revolutionary” young mother’s inability to go “all the way”.

They just could not bring themselves to push their children everywhere, as she did, because that would simply be too radical, not to mention inconvenient.  Anyway, they all had very important time-consuming activities like “bridge games” and “luncheons” and “meetings of the Wives and Mothers of the South Committee.”  No, it would simply not be possible for such self-important women to dedicate so much time to their children when they all had perfectly capable nannies.

In order to appear “daring”, even “radical”, the clever “revolutionary” young mothers arranged for their nannies to meet them at prearranged locations.  Waiting in their fancy horse and carriage at the entrance to the most fashionable parks, they would only leave the comfort of the vehicles when they saw Julii approaching.

These beautifully-adorned mothers, carrying their exquisite Paris silk parasols, would then push their child, preferably asleep, in their ornate baby carriages as they vied with each other to get close to Julii.

On the day she was interrupted for the first time, Julii’s instinct was to be rude to the woman.  After all, this was her private time with her Robert’s little Helen and she did not want it sullied by those horrible Savannah women.  But for many months Cecilia had been encouraging Julii to focus only on the possibilities of the future and never on the terrible events of her past, so instead, she smiled politely.

Initially, Julii felt she was betraying Robert’s memory by giving in to these wives and sisters of the men who murdered him, but with each passing day, she learned to forgive and let her anger subside.  Some of the white women were actually quite nice to spend time with, so Julii even allowed herself to become friendly with many of the Savannah ladies who, because of an early mix-up, called her “Mrs. Roberts”.

The mistaken name came about during a befuddled conversation with three of the more aggressive white ladies.  They had been competing with each other for Julii’s attention, when one of the mothers had asked, “Do you have a husband fighting for the South?”

Julii gave the somber answer.  “The man I love is dead.”

Even while Julii was still speaking, the second aggressive lady, who just happened to have a single and “eligible” brother, asked a question while the third lady simultaneously asked another.

As a result, the second and third questions came out as one confusing sentence.  “Would you ever consider remarrying?” and “What was the name of your husband’s family?”

Responding in the correct order, Julii answered the second lady’s question first.  “I will never remarry.  I will always be Robert’s.”

But this was somehow interpreted as the answer to the third lady’s question and, because of the incredible efficiency of the Savannah gossip-mill, the name “Mrs. Roberts” immediately leapt its way from one person to the next until the name was known by everyone, and anyone, who mattered.

No one questioned it because Roberts was such a plausible surname in the South.  No one knew anything about her past, but people in high society were becoming used to displaced families of breeding.  Everyone assumed Julii’s home had been destroyed by those “damn Yankees” like so many other transient people in Savannah and “the lovely Mrs. Roberts” soon became the most desired and sought-after conversation companion in Savannah.

Always elegant in her wonderfully bright silk dresses brought all the way from Paris and Milan, her latest hairstyle, and perfect makeup, “Mrs. Roberts” was the woman who came to define beauty and sophistication in Savannah.

Her radical child-raising was groundbreaking enough, but she was also admired because she personally oversaw the business that was keeping the South in the fight.

Her conversations were always scintillating because she simply knew everything about anything.  Mrs. Roberts had read everything and could converse eloquently about topics as diverse as the state of the Civil War to the siege of Troy.

As the days passed and Mrs. Roberts spent more and more time walking and talking with so many ladies while pushing baby Helen, she began to mellow.  Eventually she even came to believe that these women of the South were not so bad after all.

Little by little, she forgave the Confederacy its many faults and reasoned that striking the major blow in Vicksburg had caused enough damage.  She decided to ease up on her punishing payment terms and follow Cecelia’s advice by allowing herself to forgive.

Julii was healing and giving herself permission to let Robert go and move on with her life.  For the first time since losing her Robert, she entertained the possibility of a happy future with Count Anton in Savannah or Rome or wherever he decided to live.

She began to positively bask in the joy of being loved and being happy and being able to believe in the existence of an optimistic future when, one bright and happy day, something so shocking, so inhuman, so vindictive happened that all of the good work that had been done to Mrs. Roberts was undone for Julii in an instant.

When Julii first saw him, he was stumbling along the street with his unshaven face and humiliatingly-naked body covered in bloody cuts.  She did not recognize him, but there was something familiar about the broken man.  Something that tugged at her memory.

His swollen hands were tied together then strung to the saddle of an old horse.  She noticed the worn-out rope around his wrists was cutting deep into his flesh.  She realized that he must have come a great distance in this awful manner.

Then, suddenly, she recognized why the man seemed so familiar.   All of Mrs. Roberts thoughts of love and tolerance and acceptance and forgiveness were banished for good.  Anger and rage and hatred and the need for bitter vengeance came flooding back into Julii like a wave crashing on the shore.

In order to take a closer look at the struggling man, Julii pushed her fashionable handmade English perambulator off of the sidewalk and out into the middle of the street, stopping directly in front of the horse.

The rider looked like the filthiest, foulest, most disgusting human being Julii had ever seen.  He was white but his face was so filthy he could have passed as a brown man.

She glared at the rider and demanded to know what he thought he was doing.  The rider merely looked at her with no emotion and said nothing.  Julii was taken completely by surprise by his cold reaction.  She was no longer used to white folks not adoring her or not wanting to spend time with “Mrs. Roberts”.

She moved her angry glare one perambulator push closer, but the rider just pulled the horse’s bridle and the horse obediently stepped around the baby carriage.  As the horse kept on moving, Julii pushed her pram alongside and kept asking the man: “What do you think you are doing?”

In an attempt to slow the rider down, she raised her voice for all to hear, but the rider plodded silently onwards.  He couldn’t care less what people thought of him.

It was only when a young Confederate officer saw the commotion and crossed the street to confront the man on the horse that he even bothered to look down.

The young officer decided to put on a show to impress Julii by saying in a haughty voice, “May I ask what is going on here, sir?”

The rider stopped his horse and Julii stopped the pram.  Folding her arms, she adopted the _now we will see who has the upper hand_ stance, but the rider looked disinterestedly at the officer and replied.  “This here woman’s got herself in some kind of flutter cause she don’t like I’m moving that there nigger up this here street.”

Julii could not believe her charm was not working on the ghastly rider.  _The young officer was almost swooning, so why not the rider?_   She even heard the sound of her own disbelief in her voice as she said, “That’s not it at all!  I know this man!”

The rider turned to look over his shoulder as though he was making sure of what he actually had on the end of his rope.  Satisfied, he turned back and said, “Ain’t no man.  That there’s a runaway nigger.”

Looking at the young officer, he added, “This here woman’s got too much sun.  She ain’t thinking straight.”

Julii was delighted to see the young officer’s hand move rapidly to the hilt of his sword as he said, “How dare you insult a lady of Savannah, sir!”

Moving to the brown man at the end of the rope, Julii took out her beautiful silk handkerchief, spat on it, and wiped crusted blood away from his mouth and eyes as she said, “Paul.  It’s me.  Julii.”

Looking into his vacant stare, she asked gently: “Where is Matilda?  Where is your baby?”

Paul’s eyes stared blankly out in shock and exhaustion and pain.  He did not understand who Julii was, where he was, or what was happening to him.

The rider and Confederate officer were both surprised and appalled by the beautiful woman’s intimate treatment of a nigger.  Any thoughts the young officer may have had about impressing such a beautiful woman were gone.  Only confusion and doubt could be heard in his voice as he asked, “Is this your nigger, Madame?”

Julii turned to the rider and glared at him with all of the old anger and hatred she felt for the South and, without words, she made him flinch for the very first time.  The danger she conveyed with that look was unmistakable.  The rider looked relieved when she turned to the young officer and gave him an order.  “Use your sword to cut this cord.”

As frightened and confused as he was, the rider could feel his hard-earned profit slipping away.  Using an aggressive tone to bolster his courage, he asked, “You some kinda nigger lover, lady?”

The young officer was now totally confused.  His core “southern values” told him to defend a lady of such obvious breeding, while those exact same values told him to disrespect the very same lady for being too familiar with a nigger.  Turning to the rider, he spoke without true conviction.  “You will not talk to a lady like that in my presence, sir.”

Turning to Julii, the young officer had an idea.  Hope of resolving this absurd conflict flickered across his face as he asked, “Perhaps this is your husband’s nigger, Madame?”

The young officer’s words were obviously offering her a way out that made some kind of sense to him.  The tone of his question was giving her the chance to be upset about the loss of an asset instead of being a “crazy nigger lover”.

Julii showed her understanding by saying, “Yes.  That’s it exactly.  This here is my husband’s nigger.”

Sensing some kind of scam, the rider became more than a little animated.  “I picked this here runaway nigger up fair and square.  If you got some kind of claim on him, you best get to the market!”

The rider kicked his horse to move on but the young officer grabbed the bridle.  Relieved he could make sense of what was going on, the young officer looked from the rider to Julii and said, “This man has clearly expended a great deal of time and effort returning your husband’s nigger, Madame.  Surely you will be able come to some kind of an accommodation that suits both parties?”

Turning back to the rider, he added, “How much is your reward for returning this nigger?”

“I gets five hundred bucks for every warm body.  No, six hundred!”

The rider’s fear of loss had clearly been overcome by his greedy potential for profit.

Julii looked at the rider with contempt.  She could have tied him up in verbal knots if she wanted to.  He would have been a pushover in a negotiation, but she really needed to save Paul.  Unable to give up without at least a passing shot, she said, “That’s a lie but I will pay you.  Follow me and I will give you your thirty pieces of silver.”

The filthy rider protested.  “Thirty pieces of silver don’t add up to no six hundred dollars, lady!”

The young officer was no longer able to contain his temper.  “Shut up you ignoramus or, so help me god, I will run you through!”

Shaking him by the hand, Julii thanked the young officer for his help, returned to her baby carriage, and led the rider to Count Anton’s office.

Raiding her own pile of cash, she purchased Paul for six hundred dollars.  The act of purchasing a human being felt completely wrong; it was an evil deed that captured the shabbiness of the Confederacy completely.  She was going to remember how disgusting it made her feel until the day she died.

She was also going to remember the repulsive slave catcher’s parting words.  “You feel like forking over another six hundred for another no-good nigger, you’ll find me down the street in the saloon.”

As he passed through the office door, he couldn’t resist adding, “Don’t come round this week though, lady.  I won’t be up for no nigger catching till this here money runs dry.”

 

 


	32. Paul

####  Paul

 

Julii would have happily given up her own bedroom for Paul, but one of the guest rooms was chosen because it was at the quieter rear of the house.

On the day of her disgusting act of purchasing a human being, Julii patched Paul up and, because he stared blankly off into the distance, she repeated his and her name over and over again as she did it.  She tried letting her hair down, she removed her makeup, she even wore her beautiful deer hide dress, but he showed absolutely no sign of recognizing her.

Julii remembered how her mind had very nearly snapped and feared his mind had gone too far and may be too badly damaged to recover.  She needed a doctor to look at his physical and mental wounds, but no white doctor in Savannah would even look at a nigger.  Julii tried bribery.  The amounts she offered were truly fantastic but, unlike the dress store lady and the shoe store lady and Miss Dotty, doctors could not be bought.

She tried pressuring them by reminding them their Hippocratic Oath was in no way qualified by skin color, but even the ones who showed compassion for Paul’s condition would not risk being driven from their all-white practices for being “a nigger lover”.

One of the doctors told her about the “vets” who take care of sick niggers on plantations, but Julii had heard about their cruel reputation and refused to sink so low.

When all else failed, Julii, Samantha and Tilly took responsibility and did their best to nurse Paul back to health.  Julii even tried amateur therapy to get Paul’s mind to return to him.  She read every psychiatric book in Savannah looking for a way into his damaged psyche, but none of the few available books seemed to have the answer.  As a last resort, Julii decided to dedicate all of her time and attention to healing his physical damage in the hope that, just like her Robert, his mind might mirror his body’s eventual recovery.

Making absolutely sure that she, Samantha or Tilly sat by his bed around the clock, one of them would wash his horrible wounds and dress them regularly.  Julii took charge of even the minutest details of Paul’s recuperation.  She made sure that he drank all of the water and ate all of the nourishing food he was given, even if he did not know he was doing it.

It was disappointing work because he seemed to be making no mental progress but, even as his mind hung in the balance, his body began to heal.  Within two days, all of Paul’s bleeding, infected and puss-oozing sores had been staunched and converted to healthier scabs by the natural process of his body.

On day three of his recovery, Paul suddenly cried for the first time and, even though she hated the agony that created them, Julii hoped that meant progress was being made.  Watching his tears, she understood exactly why they were falling because she had cried exactly the same tears in Atlanta for exactly the same reasons.

After that first time, his tears began to fall down his gaunt cheeks at no specific times and for no apparent reason.  It made Julii so angry to see this proud man laid so low.  She really wanted to grab one of the count’s many rifles and murder everyone in Savannah.  She wanted to lash out at the Confederacy by strangling supply, but loyalty to her savior kept her anger at bay and the Confederacy in the fight.

Love for the count was paramount.  Julii would never do anything that could harm his reputation, or his profit margin, so she diligently cared for Paul by night and his business by day.  But when he changed his mind, her leash was slipped.

Having Paul in his household had changed the count’s view of the Confederacy.  Until Paul’s dramatic arrival, he had been taking delusional comfort from living in an environment that kept the ragged reality of the _South_ outside his doors.  His own brown staff were all well paid and treated with the respect of highly-trained European servants.  This allowed the count to remain in denial about what was happening in the real world, but seeing firsthand the bitter reality of Paul’s condition simply stripped his denial away.

This man who considered himself a European gentleman, a humanitarian, could no longer ignore the suffering taking place all around him.  He could no longer justify his actions.  He could no longer accept this war as just “an inevitable part of the human condition”.  This corrupt southern regime was torturing human beings on an industrial scale, and Paul’s broken body was the stark representation of all of the Confederacy’s evils.

After Paul’s arrival, Count Anton’s changing opinions were made clear when one morning he surprised Julii with the words: “We have to put an end to this evil.  We have no other choice but to withdraw our support.”

With her mouth still full of breakfast, Julii was unable to respond.  Blindsided by Count Anton’s change of heart, she was all at once relieved, excited and disappointed.  She had never even considered the possibility of complete withdrawal.  She desperately needed to bring great damage to the Confederacy personally.  She needed revenge, and “withdrawing” would not give her what she desired.

While chewing and swallowing as quickly as possible, the ever-growing anger in Julii saw the chance to rekindle the plans that had been shelved by her blissfully content alter ego Mrs. Roberts.

Sipping lemon tea to clear her mouth more rapidly, she phrased a question that was designed to give her the spiteful retaliation she desired while benefiting the count financially.  “If we remove our services, will not someone else simply move in to fill the void?  Will this not keep the Confederacy alive while doing nothing more than taking away your profits?”

Count Anton nodded his head _yes_ as he replied.  “Of course you are right as always, my dear.”

Julii paused, seemingly in deep thought, before delivering her often-rehearsed coup de grace.  “Our disruption of supply must appear beyond our control.”

After a moment’s apparent thought, Julii pretended to have a new idea before she went on.  “If we reduce the number of ships getting past the blockade, who is to say we are not trying?”

The count’s smile was all Julii required from this meeting.  He had accepted the potential closure of this extremely profitable arm of his business, and that was the thing she had been waiting for.  Julii now believed she had free rein to carry out her plans without hurting her beloved benefactor, and that was all that mattered.

After that momentous breakfast with Count Anton, Julii occupied her mind with nothing but bringing her vindictive schemes to fruition.  Even as she took her turn bathing Paul’s wounds, she thought of nothing but planning her retribution.  Lost in her schemes, Julii somehow overlooked the return of his powerful and very potent self.

It wasn’t until she noticed Samantha and Tilly becoming a little too pleased to be taking part in Paul’s daily bath times that she realized how inappropriate her distracted soaping technique had become.

After that realization, Julia left the bathing to Samantha and Tilly and neither offered any objection.  On day four he spoke a few words, the next day he smiled a little, and a day later, Julii heard him laugh from the next room while being washed by his two admirers.

She was greatly relieved and pleased by Paul’s progress.  When he volunteered to chop wood for the winter woodpiles, Julii knew Paul was truly on his way to recovery.  His wounds over skinny flesh had returned to manly scars over strong muscles, and the giggling maids found more and more pathetic and obvious excuses to make bath time longer and longer.

On the morning Paul refused his morning bath, Julii knew his masculine pride as well as his clear, intelligent mind had returned.  She was glad of the change, but Samantha and Tilly were both deeply disappointed.  All they saw in Paul’s recovery was a lost opportunity to be titillated and naughty, and they did nothing but protest.

The days after Paul no longer wanted to be bathed, Julii realized the proud man was well on the way to complete recovery.  Her first clue came as the result of seeing a disgruntled crowd gathering in the side alley next to Miss Dotty’s saloon building.  They were all looking at the very badly mutilated body of a man.

A few paces further along, she saw a familiar horse tethered to the hitching rail outside the funny little swinging doors of the saloon.  The horse looked agitated like it hadn’t had food or water for a long time.  Adding these two things together, Julii immediately turned Helen’s pram around and headed home.

Once home, Julii left Helen in the care of Tilly, walked out to the backyard and found what she guessed would be there.  The blood on the axe Paul used to chop firewood had been wiped, but wiped poorly, _probably in the dark_.  The axe was often bloody because it was used to kill chickens for the cooking pot, but never this bloody.  Julii happened to know no chickens had been killed in many days.

Moving swiftly, she washed the axe carefully at the pump before setting off for Paul’s bedroom.  Paul slept deeply as Julii searched every inch of his room.  Opening all the draws and looking in the closets, she found a hidden bundle of bloodstained clothes.  Julii ordered Samantha to take them outside and burn them immediately.

As the smoke rose from the bonfire in the backyard, Julii filled the beautiful porcelain washing bowl with water from the porcelain jug with the same floral pattern.  The water in the bowl turned pink and Julii felt a little relieved.  Paul had at least tried to conceal his crime by washing himself, which meant he did not want to be caught, which meant he wanted to survive.

Sitting on the bed, she dipped a flannel into the pretty pink water and washed the stubborn blood she knew Paul would have missed from under his fingernails and his hair line and his ears and the back of his neck.

Waking mid-wash, Paul protested but Julii persevered.  She made him stand next to the bed and examined every inch of him, checking for traces of blood left anywhere on his body.

After ripping off the bedclothes, Julii walked to open the door and shouted instructions to Samantha and Tilly.  As Julii continued to wash Paul, the two maids made the bed with fresh sheets and pillowcases.

With just a look, Paul understood Julii knew what he had done to the slave catcher.  When he cast his eyes down in shame, Julii told him not to.  When he tried to speak words of apology, Julii stopped him.  When she told him the slave catcher deserved everything he got, he broke down and cried in her arms.

Julii held him and he let go of very deep emotions; his powerful body shuddering in her arms.  The raw energy in his body was incredible, it was like holding a struggling deer.  So strong, so powerful, so broken, _so wrong!_

While still holding Paul, she asked the question she had been dying to ask since the day she found him.  “Where is Matilda?”

The answer to her question was not an easy one for Paul.  His body grew even tenser.  He felt like an expanding and contracting rock.  In faltering words, he told Julii how he and Matilda had found their way to Shiloh after leaving her and Robert in the thicket.  Then, after arriving at the putrefying battlefield, he had introduced himself to a Captain Bush, the Yankee in command of the group of soldiers he called “a burial detail”.

At this stage in the story, Paul could no longer continue.  Julii desperately needed to know the rest of the story, but she truly feared for Paul’s sanity.  Kissing his shaking forehead, Julii covered him with a fresh nightshirt and helped him to the bed where he lay down on the fresh bedclothes.

He fell asleep as Julii and Samantha and Tilly took all of the bloodstained bedclothes out to the little smoldering bonfire in the backyard.

The following day, Paul was stronger and more able to explain how, after his arrival at Shiloh, he had been provided with a brand new blue uniform and put directly to work burying thousands of bodies.

Paul told Julii that burying thousands of decomposing bodies was a nasty job, but he hadn’t minded the work because the Yankees offered him pay, food, shelter for him and his new family, and the promise of the chance to fight against “them Johnny Reb crackers” when the time came to do so.

Paul went on to tell Julii that life was pretty sweet until the commander of the burial detail took a shine to Matilda.  While Paul toiled in the one mile long “Shiloh trench” from dawn till dusk, Captain Bush did his best to seduce her.

When she rejected him and told Paul about his behavior, the Union captain took it upon himself to remove Paul and did a very shady deal with a passing slave catcher.  The next day, as he worked in the trench, Paul had been attacked by a bunch of Yankees, stripped of his new blue uniform, and tied to a horse heading south.

The injustice of Paul’s treatment made Julii as angry as she had been during her despicable treatment in Atlanta, but the answer to her next question redefined her understanding of anger.  When she asked, “Where is your beautiful baby?” Paul answered with an unmistakable hint of pride: “Our little Julii’s still with Matilda.  She’s as strong as an ox, that one.”

When he saw Julii’s open-mouthed expression of surprise and awe, he added, “Sure.  Matilda made sure we named her after the kind lady that birthed her.”

Julii felt proud because Paul and Matilda had chosen her name; no one had ever paid Julii a better compliment.  She felt happy, then she became curious, then she became afraid for the child, then she became angry because of the injustice, then she experienced a level of fury that surpassed anything she had felt before.  Even greater than the intense anger provoked by Robert’s murder.  This was a rage she had thought herself incapable of feeling.

 _Somewhere out there, in this cruel white man’s world, there was a little child who was connected to Julii by an invisible cord._   _A child, who had simply been a fond memory for over a year, was now her responsibility._

She had one more quick-fire question for Paul.  “What risks are you prepared to take to save Matilda and baby Julii?”

His answer came swiftly without hesitation or question.  “I will give my life.  I will give my life ten times over.”

 

 


	33. Revenge

####  Revenge

 

The meeting in Count Anton’s kitchen was a somber affair.  Samantha and Tilly were in no doubt that the actions Julii was asking their beloved Paul to undertake had a very high chance of becoming his death sentence.

Both maids and the preacher found some solace in the fact Paul was very glad to be taking these risks.  They could see he was desperate to get his family back and extremely happy to be striking a blow against the Confederacy as he did so.  He was truly ready to go north along the Underground Railroad.

Samantha and Tilly were both out of their depth when it came to understanding Julii’s complex plan, but it wasn’t their fault.  They had lived a sheltered life as the children of slaves born on different plantations.  They had absolutely no access to education during any of the eight years before they were ripped away from their parents and sold in the Savannah slave markets.

They had both been lucky to be purchased by someone who trained them as house slaves, and even luckier to be purchased by the count when their master was killed at Bull Run and his unfortunate family could no longer afford to keep all of their slaves.

Julii had been trying to teach them “reading and writing”, but they believed they were “too old for book learning”.  Their resistance to learn meant they had no understanding of geography or military tactics or logistics, so the subtlety of her plan went right over their heads.

The preacher was in a better position to understand what Julii was getting at, but the immensity and complexity of her idea was too overwhelming even for him.

Julii was very pleased to see that Paul, uneducated as he was, grasped the potential of her plan immediately.  Buoyed by his ability to understand, she went on to tell Paul that, as a result of learning about the child who bore her name, Julii had fine-tuned and brought forward a plan she had been hatching for some time.

Now, instead of laying her full plan before the Union Army as she had original intended, Julii had divided her plan into two discreet sections.  Each section of the plan would be delivered to the northerners only upon completion of certain tasks.  While explaining her aims, Julii laid four envelopes on the table.

The first envelope she pushed across the table to the preacher.  He found the envelope full to bursting with bank notes for his cause.  Julii called them “Funds to grease the wheels of Paul’s passage north.”

Sliding the second and third envelope to Paul, Julii explained how the second envelope contained a letter and the third envelope contained half of her original plan.  Her exact words were: “Upon your arrival in Washington DC, you must hide the third envelope very well.  No one must see it before you deliver the second envelope to the Yankee War Office.”

Julii reached across the table and grasped Paul’s hand to impress upon him the seriousness of her words.  “The first letter mentions the third envelope’s existence and explains all that I am about to tell you.  Do you understand?”

Paul was calm and his eyes looked bright and intelligent.  “Hide that there envelope before I gets to the Yankees.  I got it.”

Samantha and Tilly both wrapped their arms lovingly around Paul’s shoulders as Julii went on.  “You must impress upon the men you meet in Washington that the third envelope contains a meticulously thought-out strategy for a strike against Atlanta.  You must tell them that, as in the Vicksburg plan, all roads, resources, crops, troop sizes and locations are laid out in the pages of that letter.”

Paul lifted the third envelope and said, “I’m guessing there’s a good reason for not giving over both of these here envelopes in one go.”

Julii’s smile and her tone showed her deep respect for Paul’s intelligence as she went on.  “The first letter also explains that the plan will not be handed over until Matilda and little Julii are rescued from the Yankee Captain and returned to you.”

It was now Paul’s turn to reach across the table to take hold of Julii’s hands.  His thanks was written across his proud and silent face.

Unable to reach for it because of Paul’s grip on her hands, Julii nodded to the forth envelope as she said, “Tell the Yankees that inside this envelope is the second half of the plan.  You must impress upon them that it is a plan that will bring the war to a swift end with a crushing Union victory.”

A little unsure of how to respond to Paul’s tears of gratitude, she paused before going on.  “You must tell the Yankees that I will deliver this envelope myself, in person.  I will only hand it to the commanding officer, who takes Atlanta, and only when I see you reunited with your family with my own eyes.”

Tilly cried uncontrollably on Paul’s shoulder.  She was happy for the proud man but sad for herself.  Even though she hid her feelings, everyone knew she had fallen in love with Paul.

Samantha looked at Tilly with the concern of a mother for a brokenhearted daughter, and the preacher looked at Julii as he would an atheist.  He did not disapprove; he simply could not understand how such a refined woman could think in such extraordinary ways.

After all of the various looks had been given and interpreted, everyone turned to look at Julii.  The preacher was the first to break the silence.  “I understand how Paul will be smuggled from Savannah to Washington DC.  Your generous donation will fund many such passages to freedom.  However, can we be sure that a Negro man, just turning up at the Union War Office, is going to garner the attention you desire?”

Julii smiled and nodded her head.  “That is a very good point.  I signed my previous letter your refugee carried, the Vicksburg letter, with the single initial “R”.  That letter resulted in a resounding victory for the North.  I believe the Union strategists will welcome another letter from the same hand, don’t you?”

The preacher simply nodded his understanding and the meeting came to an end with all at the table setting off to fulfill their agreed tasks.

Two days after that meeting in the kitchen, Paul went north.  Two months after that, Julii began scouring the newspapers looking for signs of tell-tale Union activity.  She knew full well the southern newspapers no longer printed the truth about their battle losses, but she was hoping to read something “between the lines”.

Even though she knew Paul’s uncertain journey, of hiding in churches and barns and farm houses while waiting the next kind person to move him one more leg of his journey north, may take him many months to get to Washington DC, she could not help herself looking for news that would give her the evidence she craved.

Months passed with no sign of the telltale elements of her plan appearing in the news stories.  Julii began to feel panic.  She knew that Paul’s journey north could have no predictable timetable and a campaign such as the one she was proposing would take many months to plan and execute, if the Yankees decided to do it at all, but she still spent every day quietly fretting.

When the news she was dying to read eventually came, it was during a meeting with General Hardee and not through the newspapers.   Julii found it hard to conceal her joy.  Even more satisfying for Julii, it was an extremely urgent meeting that had been called at short notice by a lone rider who woke her and the count in the middle of the night.

The fatigued Confederate generals who arrived at Count Anton’s office the next day had mud on their boots.  They looked disheveled like men who had missed more than one night’s sleep and, in somber tones, they ordered supplies that would be required for a campaign to halt General Sherman’s army moving towards Atlanta.

While writing down the orders for gunpowder, mini balls, cannonballs and rifles, Julii was secretly over the moon.  The North had committed one of its most prestigious generals to carrying out her plan.  “General Sherman” was a veteran of the battles at Bull Run and Shiloh, he had even been with Grant at her own victory at Vicksburg.

Working diligently, Julii ordered the count’s steam clippers to ignore fuel costs and travel at full speed to place all of the urgent orders with Count Anton’s European arms manufacturers because she alone knew how precarious the Confederacy was at this moment.  She wanted to extract as many valuable commodities as she could for Count Anton before the end came.

While her savior’s fleet sped crossed the Atlantic, Julii got to work on the count’s behalf, proposing a daring plan of action that would also benefit the Confederate High Command.  She formulated it in a way that would pay Count Anton for his shipments, while taking a huge task off of their already busy hands.

The generals immediately agreed and watched in wonder as Julii organized the retrieval of vast quantities of cotton and tobacco and wheat and cattle from under the very noses of the advancing Union Army.  It was as though she could read the Union generals minds, and they were all very grateful to have the amazing Julii on their side.

Three months later, Julii personally supervised the unloading of the ships arriving from Europe and, as Atlanta fell into the hands of Sherman’s ruthless Union Army, she supervised the loading of the vast quantities of rescued commodities that would be taken back to Europe on their return journey.

Once the first part of Julii’s devastating plan was complete, it became time for her to leave for Atlanta to do her part of stage two.  Count Anton protested because he had read General Hardee’s reports of Sherman’s annihilating march and he feared for Julii’s safety.  She could not tell him what was actually going on, for fear of incriminating him, so she made up a story about having to confirm logistics and cotton yields and gold supplies in the region still held by the South.

Because Julii knew exactly what she was talking about, it all sounded plausible.  Count Anton knew how hard it was to change her mind once it was made up, so he let her go on the condition she take his carriage driver and man servant for protection.

Of course, Julii refused and drove the carriage herself.  She believed risking her own life for revenge was one thing, but risking the count’s innocent staff was quite another.

 


	34. Into the fire

####  Into the fire

 

The main road from Savannah to Atlanta was choked with fleeing soldiers, desperate civilians, and bewildered slaves all streaming from their vanquished city.  Every kind of horse-drawn vehicle was loaded with the rubbish to which first-time refugees attach value.

The further away from their homes these lost people moved, the more unessential their grandfather clocks, or their ancestral linen chest, or the chaise-lounge “that belonged to Napoleon’s Josephine” appeared to become.

Things that, just a day before, they “simply could not do without” were now being dumped along the side of the road by their thousands.

This “human roadblock” should have made it impossible for Julii to reach Atlanta, but she had spent months preparing for this day.  She had studied every book that referenced the ways of war and of siege and evacuation.  Her detailed research had made it clear the roads would be swamped with panicking people who would be capable of carrying out unspeakable atrocities in order to survive, and must be avoided.

Julii understood that, in light of such heavy traffic, riding a single horse would have been easier and faster, but she had a young family to bring back from Atlanta.  So she used the time to pour over every map ever drawn of Georgia in order to plan an alternate route that was suitable for a carriage.

She was now driving Count Anton’s carriage rapidly along almost-deserted back roads and farm roads, many of which had been forgotten and unused for many years.  As she gently whipped her horses on, it gave Julii pleasure to know she still had all of those maps in her possession to hand over to the Yankees.

Before entering Atlanta, Julii stopped her carriage by a tall and distinctive tree.  There, under the branches, she dug a shallow hole and, as a precaution against the white man’s “double-dealing”, she cautiously buried a leather folder full of all the logistical information needed to bring the next stage of her plan to fruition.

From the moment she entered Atlanta, nothing went as planned.  A defeated city was something Julii had read about, so she was prepared to witness chaos as she entered Atlanta, but the reckless abandon of the occupying men and the ruthless pleasure they drew from their wanton destruction of property came as a shock.  Being dragged from the carriage at gun point also came as a shock.

It took Julii a terrifying hour to convince a wild Sergeant, then a lust filled Captain, then a condescending Colonel that she had an appointment with their general.  She was in no doubt that repeating the name _General Sherman_ over and over again was the only thing that had sewn just enough doubt in these victorious soldier’s minds to prevent them from raping her.

When she was eventually taken to meet General Sherman Julii was glad of taking precautions because that strange internal emotion that felt impossibly like experience told her General Sherman was not a man to be trusted.  It felt as though she had dealt with this man somewhere and sometime before but that was impossible so she got down to business but even this did not go as planned.

It took her a further hour to convince the craggy-faced General Sherman that she was someone worth wasting his precious time talking to.  He simply had a real problem believing Julii was the _R_ who came up with all of what he referred to as “These _jim-dandy_ plans.”

His level of disbelief was so great, he even asked Julii to quote specific sections from her letters to the Union War Office.  When she answered correctly, he was amazed.  A typical man, he simply could not believe a mere woman could be so adept in the ways of war.

Of course Julii was deeply offended by his misogynistic attitude, but she was used to dealing with “southern gentlemen”.  She had spent the last year turning powerful men’s scorn to her advantage and expected to do the same with General Sherman, but when he simply didn’t want to know anything about who or what the “R” in the letter actually represented, she lost her temper.

The whole point of everything she had done was to avenge the unfair murder of her Robert, but the brash General Sherman rudely interrupted her well-rehearsed and deeply moving explanation with the words, “Yeah, sure, Robert, got it.  But why’s a nigger like this Paul of any consequence to a southern lady like you?”

The meeting was not going at all how Julii had imagined it.  An hour had been wasted proving her credentials.  Now another frustrating hour went by as Julii tried to explain Paul’s critical importance to the success of the next stage of her plan.

General Sherman became more and more evasive as he tried to convince Julii that Paul’s involvement was irrelevant until Julii lost her temper again and shouted, “Where is the man who brought you my plan?  Where is Paul?”

Julii could see by his silent expression that something about Paul’s location had placed General Sherman in some kind of corner.  She began pumping him for the truth.  Unused to being spoken to like this by anyone, let alone a southern woman, the general tried bluster then feigned outrage.  Only when he eventually ran out of ways to avoid answering her question did Julii receive an answer, but it was an answer she was not expecting to hear.  “The nigger who delivered your letter is condemned to hang this afternoon.”

Then, as though he had just told Julii nothing more exciting than the time of day, he added, “I still can’t believe you came up with all of this.”

In all of her imagined meetings with General Sherman, this had never been close to any of her scenarios.  Julii was speechless.  She watched him bite the end from his cigar, then simultaneously spit out tobacco and words.  “You must understand, my dear lady.  I am fully aware of your instructions to save him, but your nigger killed a Union captain.”

General Sherman then stood and beckoned for Julii to follow him.  Julii was completely unprepared for this.  In total shock, she watched General Sherman exit the building.  When she eventually followed him out onto the sidewalk, she could see the general walking a few paces ahead talking to his staff officers as though she did not exist.

It was in that moment Julii understood why she had been delayed in the room talking nonsense with the general.  Blue coat soldiers had torn Count Anton’s carriage apart.  The upholstered seats, both base and back, were lying on the ground.  The beautifully-studded leather had been slashed open and the fluffy white cotton stuffing lay all around.  The subtly decorated silk lining had been ripped from inside the doors and the walls and the ceiling.  Even the driver’s seat had been broken apart.

As General Sherman passed, one of the blue-coated soldiers looked at him and shook his head _no_ to indicate that nothing had been found.

Trying to catch General Sherman, Julii stumbled on her petticoat and almost fell.  She could not believe what was happening.  The way she was being treated was exactly like her first day in Atlanta under Confederate control.  Those old memories of fear and pain suddenly began welling up inside her.  They were made worse by the building General Sherman chose to walk into.

Julii could hardly believe this most evil man had entered the place where she had experienced the full force of white man’s rejection for the very first time.  Fighting the urge to turn and run for her life, she burst through the door of Robert’s parents home and shouted, “If Paul dies you will never receive the most important part of my plan!”

It seemed as though every Union officer in existence was now staring back at Julii, and it also seemed as though they all thought she was mad.  The whole house had been converted to a war room and maps hung on every wall and lay on every table.  Julii was quietly delighted to see their boots were filthy and the hated red carpet was pretty much ruined, but that minor moment of evil pleasure did nothing to improve her helpless situation.

General Sherman beckoned, condescendingly, for Julii to join him and his officers at the map-covered table.  He spoke to his men in the most patronizing tone.  “Let’s see if a woman is really capable of making such a plan, shall we?”

Now Julii really wanted to turn and run.  She no longer wanted to help these men win the war.  She wanted these smug, horrible, arrogant northern men to fight the cruel men of the South for the rest of their despicable lives.  She hated them all.  She wanted nothing more to do with any of them, but she needed to save Paul and Matilda and little Julii.  So she walked to the table and said softly, “My plan will win this war within the year.  Are the lives of your men it saves worth the life of one nigger?”

All of the Union officers looked skeptical.  None of them cared what Julii thought or did but, as she spoke, the officers at the table changed from arrogant to curious to impressed.  They all agreed with her observations and positively salivated at the thought of being able to reach Savannah without the need for over-extended supply lines.

They all understood Julii’s detailed plan meant Sherman’s entire army would be able to live off of the resources of the South.  The resources only Julii’s buried information would let them find.  She ended her presentation with the words, “If Paul and his family are not delivered to me immediately, the information required to achieve this plan will be destroyed.”

Julii’s words now shifted the problem of Paul’s state of well-being from her to General Sherman.  All of his general staff officers were now looking to him for a decision.  To a man they believed it a simple decision because they all craved her logistical information, but the general was not so clear.

“There is a principle here” was how he phrased it.  “Do we let a nigger kill a Union officer and get away with it?  What about our president’s new all nigger regiments?  What kind of precedent are we setting here?  In what dangers are we placing our fellow white officers who command those nigger regiments, gentlemen?”

“Can anyone here tell me what actually happened?”

Julii’s angry shouted words dragged every Union officer’s attention back to her.  They were all silent so she asked them a clearer question.  “If Paul did actually kill your captain, why did he do it?”

She looked into each man’s silent face one by one and said, “I know this man.  He is not a man who kills without provocation.  I am sure there are mitigating circumstances.”

They all had that same expression on their faces, that typical “Confederate expression” that said, “If a nigger kills a white man, who cares why he did it?”

General Sherman broke the silence by asking his general staff, “Do we know what happened?”

Julii was amazed.  General Sherman had condemned a human being to death without even knowing the full details of his crime.  She was about to scream angry words when one younger officer stepped from the pack and snapped to attention.  “I was on the escort detail, sir.”

“Good.  Tell us what happened, son.”

General Sherman sounded proud of the young officer.  Just like a southerner, he hated niggers, but he sure did like his men.

The young officer’s answer was efficient and business-like.  He sounded like a man giving a report on the health of some random herd of livestock as he said, “The captain did not want to give up the nigger woman, sir.  Claimed he loved her.”

The young man paused to let the mumbles of shock and disapproval pass before he continued.  “Said if he couldn’t have her, no one could.  Ran her through with his saber, General.”

Julii became faint.  She looked around for a seat.  One of the young officers observed her body language and moved a chair behind her as she fell.

In disbelief, Julii heard the young officer continue his emotionless report as though nothing important was being said.  “He was about to run the child through when the nigger killed him with his bare hands.  Took five of my men to pull him off the captain.  By that time he was dead, General.  Broke his neck.  May I say, I am deeply sorry for the loss of Captain Bush, sir.”

General Sherman touched the young officer sympathetically on the shoulder.  His reply was edged with empathy but not for Paul or his wife or his innocent child.  “Not your fault, Captain.  He’s a big buck nigger, that one.”

“You all disgust me!”

Julii’s words came out in a shout of anger and venom.  “What would any of you pompous men have done to a man who murdered your wife?  You call yourself gentlemen but you are not gentlemen.  You are inhuman monsters!  North and South!  You are all the same!”

General Sherman turned to Julii with a look of disbelief.  He sounded confused.  “Why the hell does a southern woman care so much about one buck nigger?  Your lot treat them worse than we do!”

 _My lot?_   Julii had to calm down and remind herself who she was now.  The last time she had been in this house she had been an “Injun”.  Now she was a southern white lady and that was the only advantage she had, so she forced herself to ask a question that a southern white lady would ask.  “Are you not fighting for this nigger and all of the other slave niggers?”

Julii stood and walked close to the general.  “Isn’t the whole point of this war to liberate the slaves in the South?”

General Sherman lost his temper for the first time and it broke like a storm as he raised his voice.  “I would not risk even one of my boys for the freedom of a million niggers!  This war is not about freeing niggers!  This war is about the Union.  This war is about the unity of our nation, Madame!  Do not sully our glorious campaign, in which many thousands of good white men have so bravely given their lives, with talk of freeing niggers!  Now, wait outside while I make my decision.”

 

 


	35. Murder

####  Murder

 

Julii had never felt more helpless as she waited outside for the Union officers to discuss Paul’s continued life or sudden violent death.  She harbored absolutely no doubt they all really wanted to kill him, but she also knew they desperately wanted her information.

Much pacing and fretting and staring at blue soldiers who stared back at her was followed by more pacing and fretting and staring.  When she was called back into the war room, General Sherman had the temerity to say, “Although it sends completely the wrong message to free a nigger who murders a Union officer, we are all in agreement.  Your nigger will be pardoned upon receipt of your information.”

General Sherman was speaking as though he was doing Julii some kind of favor, but she found no relief or pleasure in his decision.  She would never trust the word of any American white man ever again, North or South.  She was on the verge of rudely demonstrating her distrust by telling General Sherman he would have to hand her friend over before she would even consider retrieving her hidden information, when Paul was marched into the room.

His face was badly beaten and his body bore the marks of the lash.  Julii walked to Paul and held him.  Her touch made him flinch and she recoiled to avoid causing him more pain.  “What happened?” was all she could think to ask.

Looking through his one open eye, Paul tried to speak, but his rasping voice was caught in a dry mouth and throat.  Julii looked around the room for water.  Finding a jug, she picked it up and held it as he drank.  She stared down the looks of disgust from the Union officers who disproved of a nigger drinking from their jug.  When he tried to speak again, Paul’s voice sounded desperate but clearer.  “That Yankee captain killed Matilda.”

Even in his physical agony, even after all the brutal injustice, even in the face of imminent execution, his greatest source of pain was the loss of Matilda.

Julii fought against the tears welling in her eyes.  She would not let them fall.  These disgusting blue men would see them as a sign of weakness and not the unadulterated anger welling inside her.  She wanted to be rid of all blue men, gray men, and white men.  Every instinct she had was telling her to leave, but there was one last thing that had to be asked.  “Where is the child?”

General Sherman turned to the young captain, whose report had explained Matilda’s brutal murder so succinctly, and asked in the tone one would use to find a misplaced cigar, “Where is the nigger child?”

The captain sounded confused.  “It’s got to be here in Atlanta somewhere, sir.  We brought it back with this here nigger.”

This was just too much for Julii.  Leading Paul from the house, she looked over her shoulder and snarled at General Sherman.  “You want the information?  You’d better find that baby alive and well!”

At a single nod from General Sherman, young officers streamed out of the house and past Julii as she helped Paul walk along the sidewalk.  The young officers ran to every house and shouted orders to every blue soldier billeted inside.  Soon, hundreds of blue-coated men were running around Atlanta looking for the baby nigger called Julii.

Sitting in what was left of Count Anton’s carriage, Julii had Paul washed and bandaged by the time little Julii was found.  She had been sleeping, in her little wicker basket, undisturbed in exactly the same place Paul had put her upon arriving in Atlanta.

One of the general staff carried the basket to the carriage.  Once the baby was inside the carriage with Paul, Julii climbed up and took the reins.  Looking down at General Sherman, she spoke with contempt.  “The information you seek is buried under a tall tree.  Send a single rider to me when I am ten miles outside Atlanta and I will tell him which tree.  Good day to you, General.”

Beating the horses into action, she made them pull the carriage to the left.  Unable to make the U-turn in one go, she made the horses back up and turn again.  Hundreds of blue soldiers lined the street watching Julii thrash the horses.  She hated hurting them but, on this occasion, fear overcame compassion.

The end of Atlanta was frustratingly in sight.  The exit she had escaped from on the day of the riot was just a few blocks away, but she was shaking and the turn was taking so long.  Julii heard one of the many watching blue soldiers shout something to his commanding officer, but she was too busy to pay attention to his words.

She then heard the commanding officer shout something across the street to General Sherman that sounded like, “This sentry reports he saw the woman burying something this morning, General!”

Understanding the implications of what had just been said, Julii thrashed at the horses.  She tried to make them mount the sidewalk to complete the turn, but fear of the blue men and years of conditioning prevented them from doing it.

General Sherman’s rapid hand signal had Julii’s carriage surrounded and stopped in an instant.  She whipped as many blue men as she could reach, but she knew it was futile.  She could do nothing but watch as the general beckoned the soldier and his commanding officer over to him.  The soldier stood to attention, saluted, said something Julii could not hear, and pointed directly at her.

General Sherman smiled at the soldier like a proud father to his son.  At the top of his voice, the general shouted: “This man has done the Union a great service!  This man has performed his picket duty with distinction!”

Interrupting the general, the soldier said something Julii could not hear.  She watched General Sherman’s expression of pride and pleasure turn to dark anger.  His voice boomed down the street.  “Where is your sergeant?”

From across the street came a sergeant with a red face and fear in his eyes.  Sprinting across the street, the sergeant came to attention and saluted the general.  Julii’s heart sank when she saw her dirt-covered leather folder held in his left hand.  Totally helpless, she watched her only chance of saving Paul’s life being handed to his executioner.

General Sherman was furious.  He looked hard at the sergeant and yelled directly into his face.  “Do you mean to tell me that we have had to endure half a day of complete nonsense and you have had this in your possession the whole time?”

The sergeant grew stiffer and taller.  His head looked as though it may pop from his neck.  He mumbled something Julii could not hear until the general cut him off.  “Get out of my sight!”

The sergeant ran away as General Sherman ordered Paul to be dragged from the carriage and lynched from a tree in the street.  Julii’s protests were completely ignored.  She ran from the carriage and pulled at Paul as the blue coat mob bound his hands.  She was treated with contempt as the Union soldiers cheered the lynching of a nigger who killed one of their brave captains.

She fell to the ground and wept uncontrollably for the injustice.  Had it not been for her Helen and Paul’s little baby’s total dependence on her, Julii would have ended her life right there on the streets of Atlanta.  Snatching a revolver, she would have taken the lives of one, maybe even two, blue Yankees, maybe even General Sherman himself if luck was on her side, but the babies needed her to live.  Weeping openly, Julii could do nothing but lay in the dirt and watch as the light in the eyes of the man she greatly admired went out.

In a perfect white man’s contradiction, General Sherman gave a compassionate order for his men to gently help Julii to her feet and escort her back to her carriage.  As she moved past him, he stopped her and did something surprising.  He sent all of his men out of earshot.  Then, holding open her leather folder, he said quietly in a grateful tone, “You even included the 1860 census.  I can provision an army for months and months with this logistical information.  You are a very clever woman and your plan is most complete.”

Looking to make sure no one could hear him, General Sherman added in a half whisper, “With your permission, Madame, I shall call it my _Great March to the Sea_?”

Julii was confused because his question made no sense.  It was completely illogical.  Why did he want her permission?  _He did not need her permission._   Then it dawned on her.  General Sherman craved recognition.  His ego required this plan be his alone.  _Paul was merely an unwanted witness whose death had been driven by nothing more than vanity._

The only reason she was still alive was her gender and apparent “white” race.  General Sherman knew history would forget the lynching of a slave, but he could not be seen to murder a white lady of apparent standing without sullying his reputation.  He also knew he would not be able to cover it up because there were far too many witnesses.

In that moment, Julii understood her life or death hung on how General Sherman’s chivalry was going to be judged by history.  Posterity, and the fact he didn’t know she was an “Injun squaw”, was now the only thing keeping her alive.  She knew it was time for her to leave.

Julii turned, but he discourteously grabbed her arm to stop her.  Unsure how long the opinion of his peers and descendants would keep him at bay, Julii remained motionless until she heard him ask: “I have just one more question.  In all of your detailed planning, you have not proposed a course of action for the city of Atlanta.”

Julii wanted to kill this evil man more than she had ever wanted to kill anyone or anything in her life but, lifting her head with pride, she answered in a strong voice.  “You Yankees, like the so called _gentlemen_ in the South, read your Bibles, do you not?”

“We do indeed.”

“Then you know the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Of course.”

“Then you work it out.”

General Sherman needed clarification.  “Are you suggesting I burn Atlanta down, Madame?”

Julii gave a look that said the general’s question was too obvious to bother with an answer, then shook off his grip and continued to Count Anton’s carriage in silence.

Opening the door, she collected baby Julii in her tiny basket, climbed up to the driver’s seat, secured the basket in place, and smacked the reins down hard on the horses backs.

These unfortunate animals were being made to suffer for all the wrongs done to Paul and Matilda simply because they were the only living thing in Atlanta that would not retaliate and leave behind two helpless orphans.

 

 


	36. Evacuation

####  Evacuation

 

The journey back to Savannah should have been filled with wonderfully-gloating, cruel feelings of jubilation, just as it had been played-out in all of Julii’s fantasies since the day she sent Paul north along the Underground Railroad.

Every single one of her spiteful acts of vengeance had come to fruition.  The, now empty and silent, road was littered with the evidence of Julii’s wicked retribution against the evil people of the South, yet her heart was too broken to celebrate.

Even the horses seemed dejected as they clip clopped their idle way along the deserted road without any instructions from Julii.  She simply did not care where they walked.  This was a horrible, empty journey through the night, filled with hollow regrets and the sad humiliation of failure and the sting of guilt.  It was all far too painful to face head-on so, as night grew darker and darker, Julii’s denying mind made its escape.

In her imagination, Julii stood on the deck of the ship with her Robert by her side looking out at the great ocean, and that felt safe.  Hours drifted by lost in the relief of her warm fantasy, until her artificial serenity was shattered by the Confederate picket at the roadblock ten miles outside Savannah.

In the low light of the early sunrise, she could see the young private with no boots and very few teeth was holding one of the horses by its bridal while staring up at her.  He had obviously said something, but Julii missed it completely.  After a short delay, he repeated his question.  “You come from Atlanta, ma’am?”

Forcing herself to bring the soldier into focus, Julii was amazed by the change in herself.  She no longer felt anger for the boy with no boots.  Even though he wore the hated gray uniform, she now saw the “Johnny-Reb” boy as just another victim of the “civilized world”.

He was just a boy caught up in normal human behavior, and not the evil embodiment of the racist South.  Her dealings with General Sherman had changed her.  She found herself smiling sympathetically at the bootless Confederate as she said in an unenthusiastic tone “Yes”.

His voice quivered a little as he asked, “Them Yankees coming this way?”  And he sounded very young and very frightened.

Julii felt truly sorry for the terrible trouble she was about to cause this helpless young man, because now she knew his only sin was being born south of the Mason Dixon line.  Had he been born north of the line, he would still hate niggers, but he would have boots, maybe teeth, a blue uniform and certain victory.

She now knew the futility of hating one side over another.  Her thoughts poured from her mouth as words spoken to no one in particular.  “You are blameless.”

“Huh?”

He looked confused and worried.  Julii felt she owed the baffled young man an explanation, but the more she said, the more explaining she had to do.  “There is no point in blaming the color of your uniform.  I understand that now.  Colors are irrelevant.  Be it white, red, brown, blue or gray, inside humans are all the same color.  Colors are excuses.  The truth is, we are all humans, and humans can find a valid reason to _defend a worthy cause_ , _protect something_ , _retaliate against wrong_ , or _fight for freedom_ within a beautiful field of flowers.”

“You all right, lady?”

The young soldier sounded genuinely concerned for Julii’s state of mind.  Julii felt ashamed.  She had frightened the nice young boy with few teeth and no boots, and he didn’t deserve such treatment.

She was overcome with a powerful urge to save the boy.  He was far too young and naive to be doing such an important job of work, but his older colleagues were sitting by the roadside playing cards.  Even his officer was sitting on a tree stump by himself with his back to the road.  Both he and his men seemed to have already surrendered.

Handing the boy all of the food and water she had packed to feed Paul and Matilda, Julii said, “I am fine.  Thank you for asking.  And in answer to your earlier question, yes, the Yankees will be coming down this road very soon and I am extremely sorry for it.”

“Ain’t your fault, ma’am.”

She wanted to give him a hug.  He seemed so vulnerable.  She could easily fit him in her carriage, but she knew doing so would get him shot by a firing squad for desertion, just like her Robert had been shot for desertion.  Whichever way she looked at his plight, she could not help him.  So, unable to reconcile her feelings of sympathy and guilt, Julii whipped the horses into action and drove on leaving the young soldier to face his fate.

When Julii arrived at the outskirts of Savannah, she could take the carriage no further because the place was a mess of discarded carriages with horses still attached.  The vehicles that blocked the road and beyond had been abandoned by the hundreds.

Julii could not be so cruel to the count’s horses, so she dismounted, unhitched the horses, tied one to the other, mounted the lead horse and, with baby Julii’s basket pinned between her body and left arm, set off for Savannah.

As she rode into town, Julii had to weave her way through the jam of carriages and horses and people filling the streets.  Desperate people, many with young children, were walking from building to building seeking any kind of shelter.

As a student of human nature, Julii knew the price of accommodation would have gone through the roof, as it always does in times of suffering, which is why those who were unable or unwilling to pay these exorbitant rates were using their carriages as makeshift homes.

It took far too long to pass through the mess, and the horses became spooked by the strange changes to their once predictable streets.  Julii had to dismount and walk them through the muddle of humanity.

Her first action, after entering Count Anton’s home, was to ask the carriage driver to take care of them and calm them down.  Then, taking Helen from Samantha, she carried her and little Julii upstairs to the safety of her room.

Lying on the bed, Julii held the babies close and wept for their future.  She wept for her Robert, she wept for Paul and Matilda, she wept for Ringwind, she wept for her mother and father, she wept for the boy with no teeth and no boots, she wept for herself, and she wept for humanity.

 

 


	37. Despair

####  Despair

 

The day after Julii’s sad return from Atlanta, Count Anton had to pry her from her state of total mental collapse.  He tried logical words of encouragement and then he tried hollow threats, but even he did not believe any of his transparent menaces.  He even tried appealing for the well-being of the babies, but it was all to no avail.

The only thing that moved Julii to leave her room was his parting personal plea for help with his business.  As a last resort, he said, “We are very busy and I need your help at the office.”

Having already given up, he was surprised to see how successful that final tactic had been.  Julii had simply left her bed, dressed herself, applied her own makeup, left the babies in the hands of Samantha and Tilly, and dutifully followed him to his office where a line of people snaked from the front door along a city block and around the corner.  Once they had pushed their way inside, Julii went unemotionally about negotiating passage for the desperate civilians who feared the wroth of the Yankee invasion.

Many of the desperate refugees in the line outside had great bundles of folding money but, because of Julii’s earlier decree, the count’s business would not accept a single note.

Ten large men, who in a perfect act of irony were being paid thousands of paper Confederate dollars for their violent abilities, stood guard at the front door allowing only those with gold or diamonds inside.  Just as Julii had always predicted, Confederate money was about to become worthless, but the ten brutes at the door didn’t care because, until the Yankees arrived, they could still buy whiskey with paper.

Few people had the valuable items required for entry, but a significant minority was enough to fill the limited number of places on Count Anton’s steam ships on their final homeward journey.

Julii should have been reveling in this moment.  She had been looking forward to this day for two years.  She had read enough books to know at the end of a war there is nothing but desperation for the loser.  She had known this flood of refugees was going to hit Savannah one day, and she had anticipated the angry pleasure of looking them in the eye as she refused them passage but, since her life-changing meeting with General Sherman, even this felt hollow.  She did not care who made it out or who got stuck at the dockside.  The only thing keeping her out of bed was the burning loyalty she felt towards her savior Count Anton.

Even when Robert’s mother, father and much-hated nanny appeared before Julii, she felt nothing.  Even though she had been fantasizing about this particular moment, in minute detail, since her first days in Savannah, Julii felt no emotion.  She was completely numb.  In her fantasies, they were going to be broken before her, brought to their knees by her all-powerful cruelty.  But now they were standing there in front of her, she no longer cared.

Neither Robert’s mother nor father had any idea who she actually was, so they treated Julii with the groveling respect of a white lady who held their salvation in her hands.  Even this provided no pleasure.  Julii heard herself say in a matter-of-fact voice, “Gold or diamonds?”

Robert’s father handed Julii a small cloth bag as he replied.  “Diamonds.”

And that was the full extent of their exchange.  Without looking up, Julii poured the diamonds onto a small scale, adjusted the counterweight, removed and replaced a few diamonds until she had the correct weight, then handed back the rest.  She was in the process of carelessly writing three tickets of passage when something happened to bring her anger flooding back to life.

The act that reignited Julii’s rage was surprising because it was a simple, insignificant one after all Julii had been through.  After all she had seen and felt, she did not expect to be aroused by something so stupid, but she was.  It was Robert’s mother saying, “Only two tickets, dear.”  Then turning to speak to Robert’s nanny that did it.  In her matter of fact way, she said, “Once you have taken our bags to the ship, you are free to go.”

Julii’s heart suddenly pulsed with fury at the insensitivity and callous injustice of the scene unfolding in front of her.  In that moment she felt hot, strong and filled with angry purpose.  It was not because of the way Robert’s mother was discarding their nanny, she did not care about Nanny.  Nanny had been as cruel to her as all the white folks in Atlanta and she hated her, but Nanny had given her Robert years of love and service and these people were simply discarding her with a word.

Julii stood.  She held the three tickets in her hand and her body shook as she screamed at Robert’s mother.  “You are evil!  You will never travel on any of my ships!”

Hearing the commotion, Count Anton ran to the head of the line to see what was happening.  Stopping in front of Julii, his concerned voice told her how odd her behavior must appear to others in the room as he asked, “Is everything all right, Julii?”

His words instantly cleared up the mystery of what was going on and who the mad screaming woman was for Robert’s mother.  She spoke in a knowing voice as though she had exposed a criminal.  “Julii?”

Turning to Robert’s father she said, “This is that Injun squaw Robert brought home from Shiloh!”

Then Robert’s mother turned to Julii and said something so selfish, so unexpected, so uncaring, and so inhuman it took both Julii and Count Anton’s breath away.  “Do you know how much harm you caused us?  We were very nearly shunned by polite society because of you!”

In all of the thousands of different ways Julii had seen this moment playing out in her mind, she had never even considered this one.  _Of all the terrible, disgusting, brutal, unjust, life-altering events in Atlanta, Robert’s mother was only troubled by something as petty as how she was perceived by polite society._

Angrily holding up the three tickets, Julii now understood exactly how to wound this woman deeply.  Letting go of any self-control, her anger and frustration came shouting out of her.  “You are evil!  You are cruel!  And you are selfish, but I will let you on my ship on one condition!”

Even though Julii held her life, and the life of her husband, in her hands, Robert’s mother could not hold her tongue.  “How dare you speak to me like this?  I am not your nigger!”

Seeing his chance of escape slipping away, Robert’s father raised his voice to scold his wife.  “Stop this!  Stop this now, woman!”

Ignoring his wife’s expression of surprise and withering fury, Robert’s father turned to Julii and spoke in a deeply apologetic tone.  “Please forgive my wife.  She is distraught.  We have lost everything, you see?”

An evil smile crossed Julii’s face as she said: “Not everything!  Not yet!”

Looking Robert’s mother directly in the eye, Julii said in the most arrogant tone she could muster, “If you are truly desperate to board one of my ships, you must prove it.  To earn these tickets, you must carry all of Samantha and Tilly’s luggage from their home to my ship for them!”

Robert’s mother looked at Julii with all the dignity of a woman of power.  Her tone made it clear she thought Julii was beneath her as she enquired in her hoity tone, “And who, may I ask, are Samantha and Tilly?”

The office had fallen totally silent during the quarrel because everyone had stopped what they were doing to look at Julii.  All eyes were now on her, and she knew they were all wondering why she was being so vindictive to the lovely old couple, but she didn’t care.  Looking around to make absolutely sure she held the room, Julii answered her Robert’s mother’s question in a voice loud enough for all to hear.  “They are two human beings who someone like you would call _niggers_.”

Robert’s mother’s face showed the signs of her inner turmoil for the very first time.  She knew her life and the life of the man she loved rested on the decision she was being forced to make but, even though the Confederacy was collapsing all around her, even though most of her “polite society” was standing in a long, disorganized, panicky line outside, even though the cream of her “polite society” were begging for very limited places on very few ships and, even though she would have no physical trouble carrying a few bags to the ship, she could not bring herself to serve a nigger.  The outrage of privilege and generations of racial dominance spewed from her mouth.  “You will never force me to carry out such a despicable act!”

“Then you can take your chances with the rest of these evil people.”

After she finished speaking, Julii ripped up all three tickets and tipped the diamonds from the little scale into the outstretched hand of Robert’s father.

Robert’s father was in total shock.  He seemed genuinely not to understand Julii’s point of view.  He sounded confused as he turned to Count Anton and said, “I assume this is your company.  Why are you allowing this Injun squaw to treat my wife so appallingly?  Do you know who we are?”

Count Anton turned to look at Julii with deep concern.  He knew her well enough to know such an outburst would be hurting her more than her victims.  He could see she was near breaking point; her body shook with anger and grief.  He walked to her and held her in his arms.  Looking at Robert’s father, Count Anton spoke through controlled anger.  “I do know who you are, sir.  Many times I have heard about the evil things you did to Julii in Atlanta.  Oh yes, I know who you are.”

Robert’s mother spoke in her most pompous voice.  “How dare you, sir?  My husband is the Mayor of Atlanta.”

Count Anton looked at the woman with pure distain and said, “Not anymore, he’s not.”

When Robert’s mother asked why Count Anton was being so unreasonable to fellow white people, he answered, “Because I have hated you since Julii told me of your son’s final words.  He pleaded with you to take care of Julii in that courtroom, but your hateful bigotry even prevented you from following your son’s final wishes!  Now get out of my office before I have you thrown out!”

Robert’s mother was clearly embarrassed by the number of Atlanta’s well-to-do people who were witnessing her humiliation.  All of her pain and ignominy came through her voice.  “Our son’s final wishes?  This man must be somehow demented!”

Julii’s words came out in a shriek.  “You just sat there and let them murder my Robert!”

“Your Robert?”

Robert’s mother’s eyes were darting around the room at the gawking faces.  She was beside herself with embarrassment.  Her reply to Julii’s statement was directed at her “polite society”.  “He is not her Robert!  He is my Robert!”

Count Anton’s supporting cuddle turned to a hold of restraint.  Julii wanted to get to Robert’s mother.  She wanted to hurt her so badly.  The noises coming from deep inside Julii were no longer words but howls.

She heaved her body and twisted her body and swiveled her body in such a violent manner that Count Anton could no longer restrain her.  As strong as he was, Julii’s rage made her impossible to hang onto.  As she rounded the desk to physically attack Robert’s mother, she heard four simple words that stopped her like she had been shot with a bullet.  The words were spoken by Robert’s father, and in an instant they turned Julii’s world upside down.  “Robert is not dead!”

The reality of time and space seemed to have altered for Julii.  Her body no longer worked.  Her mind became silent and calm.  The silence held her rigid like a statue.  She had read about being in the eye of a hurricane, and that is how she felt.  Everything she believed was changing.  From the calm and silence, she could feel a new drive begin to grow within her.  She could feel it rising inside and taking control of all her faculties, even her voice.  She heard herself say.  “Where is my Robert?  I must get to my Robert!”

Still deeply humiliated by all that was happening, Robert’s mother turned to the line of Atlanta men and women whose approval she still craved and said, “Our son’s sentence was never carried out.  General Hardee could not spare such a good man, you see?”

Then in an even louder voice, she added, “Robert Calhoun has spent the last two years fighting heroically for the South!  Robert Calhoun is bravely defending Savannah from the Yankees even as I speak!”

Julii needed no more information.  She headed for the door, pushing highborn Atlantans violently out of her way in her panicked journey out to the street.

 

 


	38. Finding Robert

####  Finding Robert

 

Julii ran from Count Anton’s office and into the street like a woman possessed.  Ignoring heartfelt pleas, she fought her way through the line of disappointed cash holders.  She even knocked one woman to the ground in her desperation, but she neither stopped nor cared.

Looking for a quick exit from Savannah, all she could see were horses, buggies and carriages of all shapes, colors and sizes filling the space between the sidewalks.

Many of the horses had been in a harness since their self-serving owners had simply dumped them where they stopped.  Many had died of dehydration or exhaustion, but no one had time to remove them.  Savannah was a city gripped by the uncertainty of war, and all of the rules that normally guide civilized society had now changed for the worst.

Julii ran between the wagons and carriages and suffering horses until she reached the outskirts of Savannah.  Count Anton’s carriage was still exactly where she had left it but, of course, there were no horses to pull it.  Julii cursed her own kindness.

She walked from discarded carriage to discarded buggy looking for horses still strong enough to pull a vehicle, but all of them were exhausted by lack of feed and water.  It would have been so much easier to find a single horse to ride, but she held romantic visions of saving her Robert.  _He would be wounded and she would carry him to safety in the carriage she salvaged from among this mess of vehicles._   _She would nurse him back to health, and he would love her, and they would go on to lead a normal, happy life with their daughter Helen._

By pure luck, she came upon a place where many horses had been drawn by desperation to a roadside water trough.  The horses who had managed to drink were healthier than all of the others.  Julii tried to take one of them away from the trough, but all of their respective vehicles were piled up behind them in a tangled mess.

Wheels had interlocked with other wheels.  Some of the carriages had fallen onto their side.  Others rode into the air as their front axles mounted other axles.  It was a mess of wood and metal and, try as she might, Julii could not shift it.

Julii walked around to the rear of the trough where thirsty horses had managed to drag themselves within licking distance of the plentiful water.  This side was also a mess of wheels, but by pure chance, one of the single horses, bound to a discarded two-seater buggy, had been able to work its way completely behind the trough to find water and plenty of grass to eat.  Not only was the horse in reasonable condition, its buggy was free of all other vehicles.

Fighting the urge to jump immediately into the buggy and get underway, Julii delayed her departure just long enough to relieve the mess of desperate horses by releasing them all from their livery.  Once she had freed as many as she was able, Julii set off.

She was pleased to see the strong little horse seemed to enjoy pulling the buggy along the road back to Atlanta.  She gave him his head and he trotted at a good pace towards the roadblock ten miles outside Savannah.  The boy with no boots and few teeth was no longer on duty.  The man who stopped her horse from going any further was a strong-looking sergeant.  His boots were worn out but at least he had them.  Smiling, he showed a great mouthful of healthy teeth.  “I wouldn’t go down that there road if I was you, ma’am.”

“Can you tell me how to find Robert Calhoun?”

Julii realized this was probably a futile question, so she was not surprised to hear his answer.  “Can’t say I do ma’am.”

Julii wondered how she was going to explain herself.  She tried saying, “He is defending Savannah under General Hardee.”

But the sergeant replied, “We all are, ma’am.”

Stepping down from the buggy, Julii asked, “Can you tell me where General Hardee’s army is?”

The sergeant pointed to the left of the road.  “Stretches for three miles that way.”

The sergeant then pointed to the right of the road.  “And two miles thataway, give or take.”

Julii looked in both directions.  The terrain on both sides of the road was uneven and overgrown.  She was about to ask a question when the sergeant read her mind.  “Can’t get no buggy down neither way, ma’am.”

The sergeant watched Julii tie the horse to a bush by the side of the road, lift up the hem of her pretty yellow silk dress, and walk into the undergrowth.  The sergeant’s little squad of men even stopped playing cards and walked over to watch the pretty crazy woman disappear into the brush.

It took the rest of that day for Julii to walk the three miles of General Hardee’s defensive line south of the road, and with every step she longed for her old moccasins; walking would have been so much easier.  Her deer hide dress would also not have ripped on every twig and bush, but as unsuited to this terrain as it was, Julii knew her yellow silk dress was garnering the respect of the troops she met.

As night fell, Julii reached the very end of the line in the south and was invited to join a captain and his men by their campfire.  She needed their help to survive so she accepted, but felt terrible guilt for what she knew her plan was about to do to them.

By way of easing her conscience, Julii tried to rekindle the burning hate she had felt for these Confederate men, but it would not come.  She wanted to think of them as “murderers” and “Injun haters” and “nigger haters”, but all she could see were husbands and sons and uncles and imperfect human beings like herself and her Robert.

Julii’s feelings of guilt were made worse when the men, who had little food for themselves, insisted upon sharing what they had with her.  They even protected her as she slept on an old horse blanket that one of the men had given up for her.

When dawn came, Julii rose and silently departed without thanking the men for their kindness.  She knew she was being rude, but she also knew they would insist on sharing their breakfast.  She could not accept such generosity because she also knew exactly how much these men were going to need their strength in the coming days and weeks.

Returning the three miles to the main road took Julii all of the morning.  When she got there, she found the young soldier with no boots and few teeth on guard once again.  She smiled a maternal smile at the pathetic boy.

He showed signs of recognizing Julii, but he obviously could not place where he had seen her before.  Bewildered, he watched as Julii silently crossed the road, in her torn and stained dress, and disappeared into the undergrowth on the northern side of the road.

Julii asked every soldier she came across if they knew Robert Calhoun.  Some knew the surname of the Mayor of Atlanta, but none knew where Robert Calhoun was posted.  At one small camp, Julii spoke to a small group of soldiers who were building earthworks.  They were busy digging in gruesome, pointed timber spikes that faced in the direction from which General Sherman would eventually attack.

One of the emaciated men seemed different to the others.  He stopped working and stared directly at Julii through sunken eyes.  His face was completely black with mud.  His long hair and dark beard were unkempt.  His threadbare uniform, which had been patched multiple times, had a repair on the chest with the tell-tale signs of very poorly-laundered blood-staining surrounding it.  This sad man had obliviously been seriously wounded in battle.

He must have said something to one of his comrades because the comrade spat abuse in his direction.  “Why don’t you just quit your belly-aching bullshit and get back to work!”

Another, much bigger, man clipped the sad man’s ear with an open hand and shouted, “We’ve all had it with your horseshit!  One more word and so help me I’ll run you through before the Yankees get a chance to do it for me!”

For almost two days now, desperate soldiers had been staring at Julii with curiosity, with plea-filled stares, even with lust, but never with the angry intensity this man showed.  Even though the sad soldier was deeply humiliated and his ear was red and throbbing, he never took his eyes off of Julii.  His anger seemed personal.  Something about this man resonated with her as though he knew she had personally caused all of his suffering, but she knew that was impossible.

 _Unless he could read minds?_   _Could he read her mind?_   _Did he know what she had done?_   _Did he somehow know that she had caused all of his problems?_

Something powerful inside Julii told her to _Get away from him!_   _Just move on and don’t look back!_

 

 


	39. Too much vengeance

####  Too much vengeance

 

Julii was still troubled by some unknown but significant meaning hidden within the memory of the staring soldier when she noticed a vast group of tents set about a mile back from the northern end of General Hardee’s northern line of defense.  This was the end of his line of soldiers, so therefore _Robert must be there_.

Julii’s denial simply could not face the logical fact that if Robert was not there, he must be dead.  _Robert cannot be dead!_   _I will find him and save him and life will get back to normal._

She wanted to run to the canvas structures but she had not eaten since the little food she had been given the night before.  She had sipped plenty of muddy rain water from puddles to fight off dehydration, so her tummy felt full and her body was still functioning well, but she was too physically drained to do anything but put one painful foot willfully in front of the other until the distance was slowly and frustratingly covered.

When she did eventually arrive, Julii moved from tent to tent lifting every flap and peering inside.  Tent after tent offered nothing but bloody, infected, foul-smelling men and disappointment.  Even when she found the one where Robert lay on the ground inside, she nearly missed seeing him because of the bloody bandage covering his right eye and half of his face.

Having left the tent and moved towards the next, something about the bandaged soldier snagged at her memory.  _The jawline?_   _Was it Robert’s?_   Julii’s rush of excitement was immediately tempered by the realization she had not washed her face or combed her hair for almost two days.  Licking her hands, Julii wiped at her face and ran her fingers through her hair, but it was just too matted to do anything with.

Looking down at herself, she could see her dainty shoes were destroyed and her feet were bleeding.  The pretty lemon yellow dress, so suited to Savannah society, was torn and stained and useless.  This is not how she imagined their reunion, but he was here and he was alive.  It did not matter how she looked.  Even her pain and discomfort meant nothing.  She returned to the tent and fell to her knees by his side and kissed the part of his face not covered by bandages.

He was skinny like the hundreds of other men she had seen in the hospital tents.  He was also pale and gaunt like all the others.  His shirtless body was covered in healed scars.  The fresh facial wound could not be seen, but the smell of infection was unmistakable.  Her Robert had obviously suffered greatly, but he was alive and that meant Julii was going to nurse him back to health, just as she had after the battle of Shiloh.

She found the strength to stop kissing the healthy side of his face and touched his forehead in a more nurse-like manner, just as she had done in her father’s wigwam.  _She was going to save her Robert._   _She was being given a second chance._   _A chance of redemption; every terrible thing she had done was going to be forgiven._

Robert’s good eye opened in response to Julii’s fussing and recognition came slowly.  His expression transformed slowly from confusion to vague recognition to disbelief.  His voice sounded hoarse and resigned.  “Am I dead?”

“No.”

Julii smiled that uncontrollable smile that came all the way up from her tummy.  Her voice was excited like a child.  “You are alive and I am going to make you better again.”

“But you are dead.”

Robert’s voice was filled with sorrow.  “They told me you were dead.”

“Well, they were wrong.  And now I have to get you to Savannah to meet your daughter.  Can you stand?”

“I have a daughter?”

“Helen.  She is beautiful.”

Julii looked around for someone to help her but there was no one.  Most of the men in the tent were in worse shape than her Robert.

She had a million questions, but Julii held her tongue.  She did not want to say anything that would focus Robert’s thoughts back onto his suffering, so she adopted a positive almost jolly tone.  “When you are well again, we are all leaving for Rome.”

“Rome?”

In his surprise, Robert tried to sit up but the pain was too great.  Taking a moment to let his head clear, he asked, “What can you possibly know of Rome?”

“You will be amazed what I know now, my darling.”

Julii walked to open the flap of the tent while speaking to Robert over her shoulder.  “Your mother and father will be sailing with us.”

She liked how saying those words felt.  _If she could forgive Robert’s mother, she could forgive anyone or anything._   _She was going to redeem herself and life was going to have meaning again._

Julii could see Robert’s confusion.  She wanted to explain but this was not the time.  A doctor was passing a distant tent and she needed to speak to him.  Approaching the man who wore a bloody white coat over his gray officer’s uniform, with that once-hated bright yellow collar, Julii introduced herself.

The doctor was left speechless by her arrival.  Having lived in battlefields full of nothing but damaged men for so long, he was completely taken aback.  So, when Julii told him to follow her back to Robert’s tent, he did it without question.

Inside the tent, the doctor examined Robert.  Looking up at Julii, he asked, “Are you here to help me with all of these men?”

Julii wanted to tell the doctor her Robert’s life was all she cared about, but that was no longer true.  She felt responsible for all of these men who lay wounded after fighting for the city she had so heartlessly given up to the Yankees.  She even sounded apologetic as she said, “I will take Robert to Savannah and I will return with enough transport to bring all of these men back for treatment.”

“How many can you transport right now?”

The doctor looked around the tent.  “I have so many men who require urgent treatment.”

“Right now I have nothing more than a buggy waiting on the main road.  I can take Robert and two others if they can sit up.  I can walk beside the horse.”

The doctor looked down at Julii’s feet.  “You plan on walking back to the road and ten miles to Savannah?”

Julii refused to look down.  She had been ignoring the pain for two days and she needed to keep ignoring it for at least one more, so she told the doctor, “My feet are not important.”

Ignoring Julii’s objections, the doctor insisted on patching her up before she left.  Placing a very well-used, multiple tooth-marked, raw hide bit between her teeth, he sat her down then burst and cleaned her blisters.  After that agony, he caused even more pain by washing away the bloody mess with a little of his “precious” medicinal brandy.  He then used discarded uniform jackets, torn into strips, to bandage her feet and then bind them into what was left of her ruined shoes.  They would not last the ten mile walk to Savannah, but Julii promised him she could jump onto the horse’s back if the pain grew too much to handle.

After taking care of Julii’s feet, the doctor arranged for three stretchers to be carried by six walking wounded.  These six men were ordered to carry the stretchers for the two miles along the lines to Julii’s horse and buggy and then walk behind the buggy to Savannah.  Once these arrangements were made, the doctor selected the two incapacitated soldiers who would be carried on the second and third stretchers.  Finding men with head wounds who could sit upright in the buggy took no time because men with head wounds lay in every tent.

As she set-off with her peculiar band of survivors, Julii promised to bring back as many flatbed wagons as could be found in Savannah.  She also told the doctor she would bribe and threaten and bully and blackmail the cowardly people who would be required to drive them because, having seen and smelled the suffering, she was determined to rescue even the men who could only be transported laying down flat.

With six barely-able men carrying three stretchers along the lines, progress was slow.  Julii stayed close by her Robert’s side as they passed hundreds of dejected soldiers sitting by their ramshackle defenses.  Although the men carrying the stretchers were wounded and in horrible pain, Julii could see envy on the faces of the “healthy” soldiers.  They knew the wounded men would soon be in a safe place while they had to remain behind and wait for a vastly-superior enemy to find them and cause them nothing but hurt.

As the little group of stretchers passed the place where the pointed stakes were being hammered into the ground, Julii noticed the angry man with the dirty face and the badly-laundered, threadbare, bloody, patched uniform.  His white eyes still peered out at her from his darkness.  Julii had thought him angry before, but now he was seething and there could be no doubt it was directed at her personally.

 _Was he jealous of her ability to come and go as she pleased while he had to stay here and face death?_   Then it occurred to her, _The last time she had seen anyone in such terrible shape was in Savannah when she confronted the disgusting slave catcher._   _Had Paul killed the wrong man in the alley beside the saloon?_   _Had the slave catcher survived and did he recognize her now?_   _Did he somehow blame her for who he had become?_

Turning away from the infuriated man, Julii no longer wanted to face the bad things she had done back when she had been so angry.  Things were changing for her now.  Life was about to get back to normal for her and her Robert and baby Helen.

She took hold of Robert’s hand and let herself drift into fantastic thoughts of the wonderful, normal place they were going called Rome.  Even the first sounds of a commotion growing behind her was not allowed to interrupt her fantasy.  She didn’t even turn to look, because looking may bring her back to the reality of her evil past and this truly horrible present.

Even when an unfamiliar voice shouted, “Where do you think you’re going, Private?”  Julii refused to break free of her denial-driven fantasy.

Keeping her eyes forward, she heard another voice shout.  “What the hell do you think you’re gonna do with that, Private?”

Her curiosity was piqued, but Julii remained locked within her fantasy of normal Rome, when another voice called out: “Stop that man!”

The urge to turn was almost overwhelming, but Julii still refused to look at anything but her Robert.  As the commotion behind her reached a crescendo, Julii’s curiosity could no longer be denied.  Her decision to turn was already made when she felt the odd, hard thump on her back.

It was like nothing she had experienced before.  She was winded for no apparent reason.  She tried to turn to see what had hit her, but she was fixed in this position.  She could not turn her body to the right or to the left.  Looking down, she saw something quite unbelievable.  _It made no sense._   A great length of a bloody bayonet was protruding from her chest.  _How?_

Then the pain came.  Then her legs gave way.  Then the bayonet was twisted and wrenched from her body and she fell to the ground in an uncontrolled heap.

The officer closest to the attacker lunged at the man, who still held the rifle with the bayonet covered in Julii’s blood, and smashed the assailant in the face with his fist.  The man with the bayonet went down hard but it was too late, his damage had already been done.

Julii’s head lay on the ground next to her Robert’s.  Her eyes were fixed on his good eye, but she was losing focus with every labored breath.  As her life ebbed away, she heard her attacker shouting, “I met with Jefferson Davies!  I met with General Lee!  I was employed in a role essential to the Confederate war effort until you came along and ruined everything!”

In her last moment of consciousness, Julii understood who the disturbed dirty-faced soldier with the poorly-laundered, badly-patched uniform actually was.  Her last word before passing into a twilight state of oblivion was “Max.”

 _This end was not fair._   _Things were just coming together._   _Life was just getting back to normal._   Then it occurred to Julii, _Life was never supposed to be something predictable and safe or “normal”._   _Life is a series of uncontrollable and unfinished events._   _Longing for the day when everything returns to normal was simply a vain hope._   _Normal was chaos and the only way to find happiness within chaos was to accept it._   _To surrender to it, to live amongst it._   _To let it take its course._   _To allow events to be unfinished._

As these realizations and this life let go of Julii, she was being allowed to see who she truly was and who she had been and why she had been.  She was allowed to know why beauty had always been so unkind to her and love so toxic.  She was being allowed to understand why she had lived so many pain-filled times before and allowed to understand why she was going to live so many pain-filled times again.

She was being allowed to understand the recurring dream and the eternal curse that propelled her through endless suffering and, only during this brief moment between death and new life, she was allowed to understand why she must suffer.

She was also being allowed to understand why she could never remember any of her previous lives while enduring this one, but this time she was determined to remember.  This time she fought to retain the memory of who she was and had been.  Who Robert was and had been.  Who her mother and father were and had been.  Who Ringwind was and had been.  Who Max was, and who Count Anton was, and who Cecilia was, and who Robert’s mother was, and who General Hardee was, and who General Sherman was, and who everyone else who played their roles in her many lives were and had been.  But, fight as she may, she could already feel those memories being drawn away from her.

She could hear that familiar pounding in the darkness.  She knew what was about to happen, but she did not know where or when it was about to take her.  Then the familiar bright light came.  Then the familiar feeling of being expelled from a safe and warm place came rushing towards her.  Then the old familiar feeling of being held in a stranger’s arms came.

While taking his first breaths in this life, Julii could see the tiny birthmark around her wrist and she knew it was the key to everything.  She knew it was the answer.  She knew it would grow with her body to eventually fit the lion amulet that somehow always found her.  She fought to hang on to her memories by concentrating on the brown patch of skin.  _If only she could hang onto that one thing!_   She focused hard and tried not to let go of her memories, but like all of her past transitions, she was destined to fail.

As all memories of Julii were wiped clean, they were replaced with the fresh clear mind of a newborn child who would have absolutely no idea why her innocent life was destined to be marred by an ancient and eternal curse.

 

 

 

-END-

 

 


	40. MORE 'FREE' BOOKS IN THE SERIES!

####  More Books in This Series

ANOTHER SELF

READ IT FREE! https://www.inkitt.com/stories/mystery/119303/chapters/1

Julia, beautiful, insecure and misused, overcomes great disadvantage to become the richest person in the ancient Roman Republic.

Living a double life, Julia secretly wields power from behind the scenes, conspiring, manipulating, seducing and bribing to punish those who have wronged her.

When her vengeful genius sets Rome’s greatest generals Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Gaius Marius on a collision course, Julia sets off a chain of events that destroys the Republic and condemns her to suffer for even more sins of her past.

 

ANOTHER WAR

READ IT FREE!

https://www.inkitt.com/stories/mystery/119313/chapters/1

Julija, the trusting daughter of the chief of Sarajevo police becomes the inadvertent accomplice of the man who sparks the First World War by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

As more and more nations join the conflict Julija must face the part she played in causing the ever-increasing loss of human life.

Searching for redemption Julija dedicates herself to the care of wounded soldiers and, in a wretched field hospital on the Gallipoli peninsular, she meets the one man who can finally help her understand why she has been eternally cursed of the sins of her past.


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